Two for Two
by Memeal
Summary: AU, Some "Junkfood Fairies" take a hand in Wufei and Duo's relationship. Err.. relationships? What happens when Duo is truly two sides to the same coin? ::Currently being reworked
1. The Mix Up

**Chapter 1: The Mix Up**

* * *

((July 2010: I've decided to rewrite this one. I ended up hating the "female" side of the story. Thus, one half of the story has gone another di-rection. I'm also doing a rewrite of the "male" side, as I feel it bogged down in some significant places.

_Summary: Some "Junkfood Fairies" take a hand in Wufei and Duo's relationship. Err.. relationships? What happens when Duo is truly two sides to the same coin?_

_Warnings: Well, slash, for those who love it.. and for those who hate it, het as well. _

_I recognize that this can be difficult during the first chapter due to some three dimensions coming together at once. My hope is that you will muddle through and enjoy the ensuing chapters. First chapters have never been my forte._))

Two for Two

by Memme

Chapter One: Mix-Up

"Wufei?" Duo's voice was tense as he slipped in from the hallway.

Wufei turned to look at his partner and raised a brow in confusion. One glance told him that Duo Maxwell's usual calm was shattered. The beautiful man looked terrified; blushing red and paling in turns as he entered their shared office.

"What is it, Maxwell?" Wufei brought himself to his feet, moving closer. He halted however, when Duo began to backpedal at his approach, terror plain on the red head's face. "What happened? Is it Heero?"

"Heero?" Duo's eyes darted around the room as if looking for an escape route before realizing that Wufei had stopped. He attempted a smile, coming about two teeth short of a full one. Problem being, in Duo language, two teeth was a lot. "Oh! No.. no he's just fine. No, everything is fine. I - I just wanted to talk to you."  
_"I - I just wanted to talk to you..."_

"Duo, you're frightening me. For heaven's sake, sit before you fall over." Wufei moved to grasp a chair -_ and stopped seeing as how Duo looked ready to bolt again. _

"_No, I don't think I can sit quite yet. I'm not sure – _what.. you're going to say. See, I have, I have to say something."

"Go ahead, Duo. Please." Wufei's voice was unusually gentle. As strong as Duo was, he still struggled with some emotional baggage. The last thing Wufei wanted, was to make whatever Duo had to say, harder than it already was. They'd fought in wars together, they lived together (not together, because Heero and Duo were together, but together as in the same living space), and they'd served in the Preventers together for two years now as best friends and great operatives. He'd never seen Duo so frightened except for one other time. When - _Duo had chosen to tell Heero how much he loved him._

_'Surely though,' Wufei frowned as he thought, staring at his friend,_ _'that can't be the... Oh - please don't, Duo_. Please don't.' In a nervous gesture, Wufei sat back down, picked up a pen, and waited, holding his breath even as he felt his heart sink and his cheeks redden.

No fool, Duo stared at the man sitting across the room for him and sighed deeply. "You know, I can read you like a book. You're more freaked out about what I'm gonna say than -_ I am. That's sad, yanno? I mean, shit. It's not like I'm gonna friggin' jump ya, man." Duo stared at Wufei, liquid violet eyes showing the hurt they both knew was on the horizon. _

"_Yes," Wufei's saddened eyes stared up into the glistening violet depths across the room from him. "Yes I suppose I am just as scared as you. But it has to -_ be said, doesn't it?" His mouth set into a grim line of determination.

"Yeah," Duo hedged haphazardly as he leaned against the door frame. "Guess it does." And like a doomed man, resignation on his features, obliterating the hope he'd felt the night before while talking to Heero, he whispered, "I love you."  
_"I love you."_

"I know."  
"_I know."_

"But you were married.." There was that resignation again. A fact inside a simple statement.  
"_But you were married._":

"Yes, Duo. I was married. And for what it was worth, I loved her as well. As much as a child was capable of love."  
"_Yes, Duo. I was married. And for what it was worth, I loved her as well. As much as a child was capable of love."_:

"That's what I mean."  
"_That's what I mean."_

Not knowing what else to say, Wufei looked away. "I'm so sorry, Duo. I do love you. Just... "  
"_I'm so sorry, Duo. I do love you. Just..."_

"Just not that way, hunh?"  
_"Just not __that__ way, hunh?"_

Wufei didn't want to see those beautiful eyes filled with tears. He did love Duo. As much as he ever could. But it's not like he could just stop being heterosexual. The idea of making love to a man did nothing to him. Not even someone he loved as deeply as Duo. Hell, if Duo had been a woman -_ things would have been so different. Why, he'd jump Duo in a moment, never let the braided beauty get away and spend the rest of his life making his partner happy - making his partner his and his alone._

Well, except for the sharing with Heero thing. He'd work that out somehow. Or he would have if things had been anything but what they were.

"No, I guess not." Wufei rubbed his eyes and turned to his desk, letting the pen drop -  
_letting the pencil drop to the desk. Then listening as the sound of Duo's boots resounded in the hall before the door to their office closed behind. Alone, he sighed deep, lost and broken._

_"Dammit, Duo. I'm more sorry than -_ I could ever tell you. If only things had been different." And feeling a heaviness behind his lids, forcing back the sensation, he pulled a folder from the pile on his desk and flipped it open, beginning his paperwork. Duo would be okay. After a good cry on Heero's neck and a few uncertain days. Things would get back to normal.

He hoped.

~:~

"Well!" a cotton candy like voice tinkled out and up, like watching the bubbles in the champagne glass rise. "I must say, that was an interesting moment. it's rare you see a co-mingling like that happen, to be sure."

"Rrrmmm..." a darker, more Velveeta voice answered the first, this one male, deeper than the first but still higher than any human's. "I think you should leave it be."

"What?" aghast, the cotton candy speaker turned on her companion. "What makes you say that? As if I would go about messing with things that aren't my business! Everyone knows that the world -"

"-Worlds," amended the other.

"-worlds, that is, all are set perfectly in their places. Doesn't it seem strange to you though, that it would be such an easy fix? And isn't it strange that while this may happen only once every eon, we happened to be sitting here, in this very spot where we might overhear it? And with those two holes open into those two places out of all the infitismal places we could have looked, to hear that exact same thing?"

"Oh do come off it now, my dear," rumbled the male, his boredom written all over his diminutive form. He sighed, lounging in the cloud like chair, if a chair it was to begin with. "You know how it is when these lines exist so close to one another. They're almost alike. So what if that were the only difference? This spurning would be a constant, a glue to hold them together or some sort of mumbo jumbo like that. Don't. Go. Messing. About. It's dangerous. Others have been fried for less than that."

"Stick in the mud." Her pretty pout guaranteed to work every time.

"That's unfair," he murmured, glaring at her lips.

"But so very nice of you to fall for it every time."

"I hate you, you understand."

"Of course, darling. You are such a bear."

"Coming from you, I can almost take that as a compliment," he grumbled as he stood up, stretched and moved to begin the preparations. They would so get fried for this - middle name? Toast.

_~:~_

He was dreaming. It was a strange dream. Considering the uncomfortable cold shoulder he'd gotten the last two weeks, he was due a good strange dream. His internal world needed some straightening out.

_Standing before him was himself. "Hmmm..." he murmured in an uncustomary bout of humor, "I've heard of standing outside one's self. But this is a tad ridiculous."_

"My thoughts exactly." He laughed, finding his other self chuckling as well. Looking about, he stared at the dreamscape. "Where are we? Or, am I, rather?"

_"Good question. Where are.. am... I?" Wufei scratched his head and finding the place barren, one long plain with no end in sight, even with the sense of no horizon, but a foreverness instead, he turned back to himself. "Well now.."_

He chuckled. "I suppose we.. I.. wait it out? It's bound to end soon."

"Oh no! Fraid not!" a ruffled voice spoke behind them and turning they found themselves facing a somewhat portly looking bear with a pair of rumpled wings sticking out of his equally rumpled fur. "Or rather, it's bound to begin as she would say." He did not look like a happy Winnie-the-Pooh sort of bear, but more like a bad tempered Paddington, really.

"She? Who?" Wufei asked.

_"She? Who?" Wufei asked at the same time. The pair glanced at one another in consternation, hearing their voices in tandem was unsettling to say the least. _

"Her, of course," the bear indicated a growing bubble beside him, as if the ground were swelling and ready to pop. Which it did rather suddenly.

Wufei stumbled back, reaching out and finding his hand on the other of himself, or himself, staring at the even smaller and much more appropriately shaped winged creature stepping out of the broken bubble like space on the ground. Her hair a pinkish color and her small face almost the same color of a cream and red rose she was beautiful.

But Wufei knew that look. He'd seen it plenty of times on Duo's face. They were ... he was... in trouble.

"Oh so nice of you both to come!" the fairy gushed, running over to his other self and hugging it before he too, was grabbed about the neck by tiny hands. He couldn't help but wonder when this dream was going to end. It certainly was the strangest dream he'd had in a long while.

"You should look afraid," the bear like creature mumbled to them both before sitting on a tattered seat cushion which appeared on the ground behind him.

_"Oh be nice!" the pink creature smacked the bear's nose and then smiled at them both. No - not a rose. Cotton candy. Duo had given him some, once at the fair. There hadn't been enough and Duo had ended up eating almost all of it alone. He'd gotten in a bite or two, enough to know it was all the cotton candy he'd ever want to eat in his entire life. Pure sugar didn't appeal to him like it appealed to Duo's more adventurous, down to earth side._

Thoughts of Duo though, only brought the familiar stab of pain which was sadness. It would have been nice if he could have escaped that reality while asleep. This was a dream after all.

"Now!" she cried and clapped her hands in delight. "We just happened to be spying, which we're not supposed to do of course, and noticed that you both were in something of a plight -"

"More of a soul forming moment, I'd call it," the bear growled low.

"And we thought we might give a hand," the fairy thing crowed. Wufei stiffened at that and looked sidelong at himself who seemed to have had the same reaction and was now looking at him with an identical horrified expression. Somewhere in the background he heard a gruff bear-fairy-like voice mumble something along the lines of "something else we're not to do, of course."

"Must you?" he heard himself echoed.

"Oh pish post!" she laughed gaily. "Of course we must! I don't think that it's possible that there can be that many mix-ups in this universe because the Big Guy Upstairs, you know who I mean, doesn't make mistakes. But then, our overhearing and all, just made me think that of course it wasn't a mix-up. Maybe you were both supposed to be in those places so that you could be moved into another place another time. Because really, you both need to be with the love of your life and it's really so very sad that you can't yet or that you won't or however you want to look at it, so I figured I'd just get in and touch up a few things, just like a new daub on a canvas that is already perfect because there are no mistakes really, but only a simple mix-up that was on purpose to begin with -" here the fairy (though he was wondering that it might not have been some manner of evil imp? Did imps come in cotton candy pink?) had to take a breath and the subsequent pause was enough for the rumped Paddington look alike (did imps come in Paddington form?) to add, "Something else we aren't supposed to do, I might add."

_"Well, it's not that I've a problem with whatever you're going to do. It's just that I'm fairly sure that the two of us prefer to be where we are," he squeaked out, staring sidelong at his pale other half. What in the hells was going on here anyway?_

He started as the bear snatched a handful of wing and pink cotton candy fluff and the fairy like creature danced in outrage in the cuffed end of a paw, spraying butterfly dust throughout the eternity place. How could there be no horizons? That was strange, really. She was trying to say something, perhaps continue on the rant she was on, madly speaking about things that made absolutely no sense whatsoever other than she intended to do something about it all, whatever it happened to be, which wouldn't have been such a problem if he didn't know what mad creatures who had the evil glint like Duo were capable of.

_The bear sighed and shaking her one more time turned a sleepy eye to the two men, or one man as the case may be, though two of the same one were there, in essence. "I'll make it simple. She wants to grant your wish. Or your wishes. So they're granted and you may go to sleep now." _

"_Wait! Was-"_  
"Wait! Wasn't I -"  
_"- I already asl-"_  
"-sleep?"

_And the cry of his own voice pulled him from dreams. Sitting up with a shock, he stared at his room._

_What an odd dream. With a small sigh, he fell back into his bed and reaching over, turned on the bedside lamp. It wasn't a nightmare so to speak, but he still felt - off somehow. As if he wasn't entirely in the right place. A frown running across his brow, he sat up and shifted the bedclothes to the side before rising and walking to his desk. Nothing seemed out of place. But he could almost feel it in his bones that something had moved. Was he that obsessive about where things were? _

_No. No he wasn't._

Wufei knew to attend to his instincts. It was just that something felt off.

Sitting down at his desk, he sighed, picking up a piece of paper. The letter he'd written to Duo. He wasn't so sure what to say or how to say it, but he knew he wanted his friend back. They lived together for heaven's sakes! They should be able to get along.

Sliding a finger along the side of the letter, he folded it and stuffed it into an envelope. Then with a comfortable smile, he tucked the envelope next to the photograph of the gang. All five of them in their flight suits.

_-all five of them in their flight suits. With a calm smile, feeling more settled now, he reached up, tracing the edge of the photograph and let his eyes linger on the familiar faces. Quatre, Heero, Du-_  
Quatre, Heero, Du -

"What the hell?"  
_"What the hell?"_

Trembling, he picked up the picture, bringing it more _- fully into the light. There was Quatre. There was Heero. He recognized Duo's eyes, the beautiful smile, but something was -_

-wrong. Because Duo wasn't a -  
_-wrong. Because Duo wasn't a -_

"This is a - _nightmare. Shit. I need - _to go back to bed." Wufei stood, shaking - _his head, confusion littering his expression. Whatever it was, this dream or whatever it was could - _simply wait. No, it would have to wait. Because he

- still had to wake up.  
_- still had to wake up._


	2. L'homme avec la Tresse Mordorée

**Chapter 2: L'homme avec la Tresse Mordorée**

* * *

(ch rewritten)

:male:

Propped against the counter, Duo leaned over, snatching a blueberry from the platter under Heero's arm.

A spatula flashed out, smacking the back of a slender hand. "HEE-CHANNN!" With a groan Duo slunk back, nursing a throbbing hand. "Was just getting a little bit. I'm hunnngryyy..." and then whining, the braided professional slid into a chair and pouted.

The black haired pilot lifted his lips in a muted grin, hidden from his friend and shrugged. "You can wait."

"I'll die, you know. Then it'll be your fault," the no-nonsense quip darted back. On it's tail end, "What's up with Wuffie? He's not up yet?"

Heero's brow furrowed and he dropped a four inch round of pancake batter onto the hot skillet, ending the drop with a flourish of his wrist to neatly catch the last drops of batter back into the bowl. Turning with his spatula in hand, he shook his head. "Hunh. He might be ill. I thought you weren't talking to him right now?"

Of course Duo would talk to Wufei eventually. It was just a matter of getting over the initial hurt. It surprised Heero that Wufei hadn't made a move yet to patch things up between the pair of them.

"Nah, you know what a stick up the butt, Wuff-bear can be. I'm gonna love him no matter what, yanno?" A broad grin crossed the heart shaped face and eyes danced as the Preventer leaned back, tucking his hands under the braid that dangled behind the chair. "Just had to make him sweat a little first. Prove that he wasn't going to get to keep me around easy. I like to be wooooo'd know what I mean?"

Heero might have replied but for the groggy sound of feet at the kitchen archway. Both he and Duo looked across the kitchen at Wufei.

"Hey babe!" Duo crowed. "You 'wake? What's up, Wuffie? You had a bad night?" Then after cocking a head to the side, the long haired officer added with a tinge of concern, "You look awful."

No, Heero thought. Wufei doesn't look awful. He looked like death warmed over. And something - something was wrong with how he just stood there staring. Something wrong about his overall appearance. The feeling was the same sensation one got when looking at a woman with a new haircut before one was certain what had changed. Something was new or different about Chang Wufei.

Wufei's face had suddenly paled. He gripped the door frame for support and breathed hard. Both of his roommates noticed a fine sheen of sweat breaking out over his brow.

Suddenly worried, Duo made his way over to the struggling man. Reaching out a warm hand, Duo murmured, "You got a fever buddy? You really don't look good."

Wufei had woken up with the same sense of displacement. After looking around his room he still couldn't quite set into his mind what it was about the sleep he'd had the night before that might have left him so discomfited.

He rubbed his face, unsure if he was completely awake. He was real enough. It was just that the colors were off somehow. Or maybe not the colors. Maybe it was... was...

Standing, he crossed the room, going to where his katanas lay across the bedroom table. Before he'd drawn them he knew. They were wrong; the wrong color, the wrong shape, the wrong weight.

After the war, Diplomat Peacecraft had, in a quiet and private ceremony, presented him with katanas belonging to Treize. They weren't blades the commander had used ever and from the way the blonde haired prince had gone about it, it seemed that maybe they'd always been meant for Wufei's hand. They were balanced perfectly, folded a hundred times, and with dragons etched into the jade stones at each end of a pommel. It was tastefully done, everything else simple but well made. And it had been a gift Wufei felt put to rest the last of his demons. His hidden relationship with the dead man tore him in two throughout the war. But with the katanas to remind him in the mornings, each morning, he had come to believe what came from an act of love and friendship, could never be wrong. They had, for a moment or two, put aside the differences that war had created in them, and become just two human beings. There was no shame in that.

But these. These were his family katanas. The same katanas he'd buried with the two letters he'd received through the war and a lock of his wife's hair. Sending his dead to rest, he'd thought it to be.

What were they doing here? Now?

Eyes wider than saucer plates, Wufei allowed himself time to glance over the room more carefully this time. The katanas had thrust through the paradigm that was his room and now that it lay shattered about him, a trained gaze could see the subtle differences everywhere.

The dream?

With a groan, Wufei sat heavily onto the chair at his desk and reached for the photograph he feared. But just like in his dream the picture remained off kilter. Here was Heero, Quatre, and beside the Arabian, Duo. Upon that body was the slim curves of humanity, yet not so rounded, not so easily touched and far more touchable in his book. Here also, as he let his eyes dance across the line, were other differences. It had been just the four of them, himself as well. He could recognize the worry, the haggard appearance on his face. Yet it was a different face, though so slight a change that only the owner of the face could have noticed it and he'd still be hard pressed to put a name to what exactly was the difference.

Letting his thumb run over the picture, Wufei tried to go back and figure on what else there had been. What other reason?

The possibility of what might have led to this was so far fetched that he simply could not allow himself the time to think about it. Instead, he stood, realizing with his internal clock ticking, that he was late to breakfast, and stumbled downstairs to face what he now considered to be a living nightmare.

"...up the butt, Wuff-bear can be. I'm gonna love him no matter what, yanno?" the chipper voice making its way to his ear left him breathing easier. For a moment. Then, again, the strangeness came back and he stiffened, hearing how even though it remained like velvet and heat, there was an undertone, like a deeply roasted coffee taste, that was wrong. "Just had to make him sweat a little first. Prove that he wasn't going to get to keep me around easy. I like to be wooooo'd know what I mean?"

He wasn't sure if he heard anything beyond that. Duo... or not Duo but someone very much like Duo, was grinning at someone very much like Heero. Swinging _his_ legs, the person who was like but unlike Duo twiddled a fork on slender fingers and raised violet eyes painfully similar at Wufei's appearance. That mouth moved, just as beautiful as ever, and Wufei could hear nothing but his own heartbeat roaring in his ears.

As the Duo-person stood, Wufei felt his body stiffen, flush, and his heart beat stopped, leaving him in a cold sweat. No. There was no mistaking it. Duo was ...

A warm hand reaching out to his brow traced down across his temples. Shocked, Wufei focused, discovering those blue violet eyes on his and with a strangled cry stepped back, swiping across the air and shoving that hand out of the way. Instantly however, he felt sorry for it when the Duo-like eyes darkened in pain.

"Sorry man," Duo grumbled as he turned and stumped across to his seat. "Forget I asked, a'ight?"

"Wufei," came a soft voice that Wufei almost recognized, yet like everything else, was changed. He looked up, staring into the exact copy of Heero face but saw something softer there and balked once more. "Wufei.." again Heero called and leaving the stove, tossed a spatula into Duo's lap and crossed over to touch Wufei's arm. This time, Wufei didn't shy away.

"Are you okay?" came the soft query. Wufei, still voiceless, managed a negative shake of his head. "Hn. Didn't think so." Heero gave a soft smile and tucking his hand around Wufei's elbow, led him to sit down. "Here, take a seat. Let me get you some juice."

Wufei followed the directions automatically, unsure yet how to process everything that was in his brain.

Duo had taken Heero's place at the stove. He looked his friend over. "Shit, sorry Wuffie. I didn't realize how bad off you were. Sorry for snappin' atcha.."

Wufei began to shake his head to say it was okay, but the words froze in his throat as he looked up and once again met the eyes he knew so well and yet did not know. His sight narrowed into a tunnel until the only thing he could see was violet. He wondered if he was still breathing.

"Whoa, buddy. What's going on?" Duo flipped the last pancake onto the plate. Leaving breakfast behind, he pulled up a chair beside Wufei's. This time, hesitantly touching Wufei's face. "Damn, you're... cold!"

Worry was in those eyes. Duo was worried. No, couldn't have Duo worried. There were a lot of reasons not to let Duo get worried. It was bad for h- .

Wufei decided maybe pronouns weren't necessary right now. No, he had Duo's worries to concern himself with. That was something he could recognize. It was the same, unchanged from anywhere else, wherever else it was that was not this somewhere else he was in. "I-I'm sorry." His voice sounded rusty. "I think I just had a really bad night."

"Dammit Wuffie," Duo cried in exasperation. "You know better than to let me not help you in that. All you had to do was wake me up, right? I mean, I know we've been having a tough go of it, but you know I care about'cha. I'm not going to let a stupid confession on my part get in the way."

"C-confession?" Wufei stared. It hadn't been _this_ Duo who had confessed. This Duo was wrong. Wrong in some very important places to be the same Duo who had confessed. A few rather instrumental places, actually. "What confession?" He felt his world starting to tilt.

"What confe- jeez Wufei, you're really out of it, aren't you?" And at that, Wufei lost the right to make Duo not worried anymore. Duo was really frightened now. Heero too, he realized looking to the side and finding Heero's hand reaching out for his shoulder. "Dang, Hee-chan, better call us in. Sounds like we've got an emergency. When Wuffie here can't even remember me telling him I loved him..."

Wufei gaped at the beautiful - yes, beautiful - alien before him. Loved him? But - but, this was the wrong - the wrong Duo. This Duo was a - a -

His last thought before the things tilted completely and he slid off of the earth's surface, was, "- a man."


	3. La Donna Perfetta

**Chapter 3: La Donna Perfetta**

* * *

(ch rewritten)

:female:

Propped against the counter, Duo leaned over, snatching a blueberry from the platter under Heero's arm.

A grunt emanated from the messy haired cook and a swift strong hand clamped around a slender wrist. "HEE-CHANNN!" With a groan Duo slunk back, nursing a throbbing wrist. "Was just getting a little bit. I'm hunnngryyy..." and then whining, the braided professional slid into a chair and pouted.

The black haired pilot shrugged, untouched by the whining going on behind him.

"I'll die, you know. Then it'll be your fault," the no-nonsense quip darted to the indomitable back. When there was no sign of relenting Duo sighed. "What's up with Wuffie? He not up yet?"

Heero's brow furrowed and he dropped a four inch round of pancake batter onto the hot skillet, ending the drop with a flourish of his wrist to neatly catch the last drops of batter back into the bowl. Then quietly, the normally recalcitrant pilot asked, "I thought you weren't talking to him?"

Of course Duo would talk to Wufei eventually. It was just a matter of getting over the initial hurt. It surprised Heero that Wufei hadn't made a move yet to patch things up between the pair of them. The lack of communication in their house was nonpruductive.

"Nah, you know what a stick up the butt, Wu-babe can be. I'm gonna love him no matter what, yanno?" A broad grin crossed the heart shaped face and eyes caught a tint of pain as the Preventer leaned back, tucking hands under the braid that dangled behind the chair. "You know how it is. Remember when I told you? I didn't talk to you for what? Three weeks?"

"Four and three days."

Duo laughed away what residual pain was there. "You are simply an extension of that computer you tote around, Hee-chan. But nah, just had to make him sweat a little first. Prove that he wasn't going to get to keep me around easy. I like to be wooooo'd know what I mean?"

Heero made no reply. In that stillness the pair heard the groggy sound of feet at the kitchen archway. Both he and Duo looked across the kitchen as Wufei came around the corner and stopped at the archway.

"Hey babe!" Duo crowed. "You 'wake? What's up, Wuffie? You had a bad night?" Then after cocking a head to the side, the long haired officer added with a tinge of concern, "You look awful."

Wufei didn't look awful. He looked like death warmed over. And something was wrong with how he stood there, just staring. Something wrong about his overall appearance. It was like looking at a woman with a new haircut before you've noticed the hair cut. Something was new or different about Chang Wufei.

Wufei's face paled. He gripped the door frame for support and breathed hard. Both of his roommates noticed a fine sheen of sweat breaking out over his brow.

Suddenly worried, Duo stood and headed over. Reaching out a warm hand, the long haired pilot murmured, "You got a fever, hon? You really don't look good."

Wufei had woken up with the same sense of displacement from the dearm. After looking around his room he still couldn't quite set into his mind what it was about the sleep he'd had the night before that might have left him so discomfited.

He rubbed his face to clear out the last of the cobwebs. He was real enough. It was just that the colors were off somehow. Or maybe not the colors. Maybe it was... was...

Standing, he crossed the room, going to where his katanas were laying across the bedroom table. Before he'd drawn them he knew. They were wrong; the wrong color, the wrong shape, the wrong weight.

Wufei had a pair of katanas that he had had in his possession for years, family heirlooms. Simple blades, they had no embellishments but were well balanced and did the trick. He'd be more than fine with the simple black leather handled set he kept on his desk.

These however, were what Wufei may have, at one time, wished to procure. With a trembling hand, he slowly lifted one and ran a thumb over it. It was balanced perfectly, with a dragon etched into the jade stone at the pommel. The blade was tastefully done, everything well made and flashing as only the newer blades might do, without the signs of age his blades had. Yet, they were a tad too expensive looking for him. What was this? A gift? A ...

But no. One look at these blades and he knew there would have been no way Duo or any of the others, barring Quatre, could have picked up a set like this. It would have cost a fortune and not one of them had a fortune to begin with. It just fit, somehow, with the wrongness which surrounded him.

His eyes narrowed in suspicion, Wufei set the blade back on the desk and allowed himself time to glance over the room more carefully. The katanas had slowly thrust through the paradigm that was his room and now that it lay shattered about him, a trained gaze could see the subtle differences everywhere. Everything was changed yet subtly different.

The dream?

With a groan, Wufei sat heavily onto the chair at his desk and reached for the photograph he feared. But just like in his dream the picture remained off kilter. Here was Heero, Quatre, and beside the Arabian, Duo. Upon that body was the same hardened readiness of a trained killer, yet not as angled, more easily touched and far too touchable in his book. Here also, as he let his eyes dance across the line, were other differences. It had been just the four of them, himself as well. He could recognize the worry, the haggard appearance on his face. Yet it was a different face, though so slight a change that only the owner of the face could have noticed it and he'd still be hard pressed to put a name to what exactly was the difference. He only knew that he had never seen that face in the mirror and he - he wished he might have, just once.

Letting his thumb run over the picture, Wufei tried to go back and figure on what else there had been. What other reason?

The possibility of what might have led to this was so far fetched that he simply could not allow himself the time to think about it. Instead, he stood, realizing with his internal clock ticking, that he was late to breakfast, and stumbled downstairs to face what he now considered to be a living nightmare.

"... simply an extension of that computer you tote around, Hee-chan," the chipper voice making its way to his ear left him breathing easier. For a moment. Then, again, the strangeness came back and he stiffened, hearing how even though it remained like velvet and heat, there was an undertone, like some exotic spice long hidden from mankind, that was wrong. " But nah, just had to make him sweat a little first. Prove that he wasn't going to get to keep me around easy. I like to be wooooo'd know what I mean?"

He wasn't sure if he heard anything beyond that. Duo... or not Duo but someone very much like Duo, was grinning at someone very much like Heero. Swinging _her_ legs, the person who was like but unlike Duo twiddled a fork on slender fingers and raised violet eyes painfully similar to look into his. That mouth moved, just as beautiful as ever, and Wufei could hear nothing but his heartbeat roaring in his ears.

As the Duo-person stood, Wufei felt his body stiffen, flush, and his heart beat stopped, leaving him in a cold sweat. No. There was no mistaking it. Duo was ...

A warm hand reached out to his brow, traced down across his temples. Shocked, Wufei focused, discovering those blue violet eyes on his and with a strangled cry stepped back, swiping across the air as he slapped that hand out of the way. Instantly however, he felt sorry for it when the Duo-like eyes darkened in pain.

"Sorry Wu," Duo grumbled as she turned and stumped across to her seat. "Forget I asked, kay?"

"Wufei," came the soft, cool voice that Wufei recognized. He looked up, stared into the almost exact copy of Heero eyes but saw something harder, more distant there and balked once more. Heero turned the pancakes, then leaned against the stove, holding his spatula lightly in capable fingers. This time, Wufei didn't shy away from the sound of his name.

"Wuffie? You okay?" came the soft query from the table and this time, Wufei, still voiceless, managed a negative head shake.

"Hn." Heero nodded to the table near Duo and those infinitely worried violet eyes. "Sit."

Everything around him tasted too much like the war all over again. Everything but the person at the table. Wufei followed the directions automatically, unsure yet how to process everything that was in his brain. He wished he were a tad less strong, then he'd have the option of fainting. Heaven knew he felt as if he could right now.

Duo, scooting the mint green kitchen chair (weren't they blue?), looked her friend over. Worry on her face. "Shit, sorry Wuffie. I didn't realize how bad off you were. Sorry for snappin' atcha.."

Wufei began to shake his head to say it was okay, but the words froze in his throat as he looked up and once again met the eyes he knew so well and yet did not know. His sight turned tunneled, the only thing he could see was violet. He wondered if he was still breathing.

"Whoa, buddy. What's going on?" Duo stood and moved around the table this time, hesitantly touching Wufei's face. "Wu-babe, you're... cold!"

Worry flared in those eyes. Duo was worried. No, couldn't have Duo worried. There were a lot of reasons not to let Duo get worried. It was bad for h- .

Wufei decided maybe pronouns weren't necessary right now. No, he had Duo's worries to concern himself with. That was something he could recognize. It was the same, unchanged from anywhere else, wherever else it was that was not this somewhere else he was in. "I-I'm sorry." His voice sounded rusty. "I think I just had a really bad night."

"You look like it's a bit more than a bad night" Duo frowned. "I know we've been having a rough go of it, but you know I care about'cha. I'm not going to let my stupid broken heart get in the way of our friendship, okay? Look," she sighed in exasperation, "just because I went and confessed doesn't mean anything has changed."

"C-confessed?" Wufei stared. It hadn't been this Duo who had confessed. This Duo was wrong. Wrong in very important places to be the same Duo who had confessed. A few rather instrumental places, actually. "What confession?" He felt his world starting to tilt.

"What confe- jeez Wufei, you're really out of it, aren't you?" And at that, Wufei lost the right to make Duo not worried anymore. Duo was frightened now. "Dang, Hee-chan, better call us in. And don't give me that shit about being on time for work. Sounds like we've got an emergency. When Wuffie here can't even remember me telling him I loved him..."

Wufei gaped at the beautiful - yes, beautiful - alien before him. Loved him? But - but, this was the wrong - the wrong Duo. This Duo was a - a -

His last thought before things tilted completely and he slid off of the earth's surface, was, "- a... woman."


	4. L'âme d'Or

**Chapter 4: L'âme d'Or**

* * *

(ch rewritten)

:male:

Wufei found the next time he came to consciousness that there was something about waking up into a dream from a dream. The kitchen floor under him was hard and his arm hurt from falling backwards onto it.

He knew he had fainted. It wasn't that he wasn't cognizant of what had happened before. Still, for that moment, he felt that he could have easily remained unconscious just a little longer. He needed time and he didn't have it yet.

With a groan Wufei sat up. Duo was leaning over him. The other Duo that was. Worry on that beauitful face and Wufei felt somewhat guilty for having been the cause of it.

He gave a wan smile and turned to the shadow at the other side of him. Heero.

"You okay?" Heero was calm as always, but since when had Heero touched him at all and looked at him like that. A horrifying thought struck him. This was the wrong Heero too. Just like the room, just like Duo, just like the katanas.

"Nn.. yeah..." he nodded slowly so as not to upset his throbbing head.

"You sure?" Duo asked, warm hands on his upper arm.

Wufei looked down at those hands, so alike, yet unlike. They were strong, slender, a fighter's hands with scars on them and, most of those scars he was familiar with. There were a couple though he didn't recognize. He could almost accept things when he looked at the simplicity of hands.

With a soft breath and a sense of surrealism, Wufei touched the hand on his arm. It was strange, how silent everything was. The clock in the other room ticked and that sound was something he usually attributed to early mornings. Was it midnight and he just was used to it being dark? Just how different was this world, this place, these... these... people?

Wufei didn't notice Duo holding his breath as he picked up that hand, turning it over. He stared at the inner palm with the expression of an innocent, lifting his other hand he traced a scar through the fleshy part of Duo's palm that cut just under the thumb joint.

"I don't know this one," Wufei's voice sounded off in the silence of the room.

"I-"Duo choked and wasn't able to continue.

Beside Duo, Heero frowned. "That was last year. When the two of you took out the Middlesex man."

"Yeah," Duo managed. "Cut it while I jumped over a fence. You don't remember that? Y-you were so mad at me because I got blood all over the jerk when I caught him." There was pleading in that voice.

Wufei looked up, surprised at the fear he saw on Duo's face. It made sense in a way. Duo was the same no matter what. These hands proved it. That Duo had probably been made to feel guilty for destroying the evidence of a man's body with his own blood made sense. It was - he had to admit - something he might have said, would say.

"Of - of course, yes. Of course I remember," he hastened to assure. Panic rose in him. His sanity would be called into question if he told them they weren't the right ones, he wasn't the right Wufei. "I - I think I might be ill..." he hedged and gripping Duo's arm, pulled himself up. Surprised to find his waist encircled, he turned to look and discovered Heero helping him to rise. The warmth at side added to the alien feel of the world around him.

"Thanks," he muttered and gave the pair of them a weak smile. "I'm sorry. I really am. I just - just had this really strange dream and it's... it's making everything..." he couldn't continue. It wasn't a real excuse. He'd have to think about it later.

Turning, he backed away from the silent ex-pilots. Was he friends with them both? Was he more? Some things were familiar, so familiar in a world that wasn't making much sense and he felt dizzy, caught between what he knew and what he didn't know.

Duo licked his lips with a careful motion of his tongue. It was a movement that Wufei recognized and he felt the tears backing up behind his eyes. "S'okay, Wu-man," Duo smiled.

"Would you like to lay down?" Heero again. It was strange to see Heero worry too. "You said you had nightmares. Maybe you could sleep in our room?"

Wufei blinked. "Our?" his voice soft as his mind rushed to make connections. He noticed now, though he might have noticed before and just didn't realize it, how Heero's hand was on Duo's back, how the worry wasn't just for him but for the unusually silent Duo as well. In a rush to cover the flush of horror at the realization, Wufei pulled away. "Oh! No. No, that's okay. Thank you though... I, er - I have to lay down is all."

He turned back to the doorway and stumbled up the stairs. At the landing, he swallowed down the feeling of unease in his throat. Feeling of detatched unease, he turned, going through the house that was his and very much not his. There was the bathroom and over to the left, the old plant that Duo insisted on trying to keep alive yet always looked as if it were on the way out. And over there, the pictures of all of them, Duo's desire to make them as normal as possible. "Every house has a picture wall," the braided pilot had insisted.

He stopped before the photos, letting his eyes trail over the sameness and the changes. There were pictures he didn't recognize, but most of them he did. There was a decided lack of faces in some of them; relationships, he supposed, which had never come to be in this... whatever it was. This Somewhere Else.

A gentle hand on his shoulder made him jump. It was frightening, being here. But in a way, it felt strangely wonderful. He smiled uncertainly and Duo smiled back.

"What's wrong, Wuffie?" Duo asked. "I'm sorry to push but I feel like maybe I'm responsible. I shouldn't have pushed or something. Or maybe I shoulda -"

"Shhh.." Wufei couldn't help the breathless laugh as he turned and touched that beautiful face. For the second time that morning, the normally loquacious Maxwell stilled, caught his breath, and was silent. "Duo, you did nothing wrong. Believe me. Just something happened last night. I'm... I'm not sure how I could ever explain it. I don't know if I want to." He couldn't help the fact that his thumb brushed over that cheek, catching the slight stubble from the night before. How many times had he touched Duo's face? But never before had he felt anything on that skin but smooth.

"Ah.." Duo breathed and then flushed suddenly. "Kay, I mean, look, I know you got this thing with staying with two guys, but Hee-chan and I would be more than willing to put in the cot. It's not like you haven't had to share a room with us before. And if it will help the dreams?"

Wufei let his hand fall and felt a stab of pain in his chest. Heero and Duo. Handed his dream on a platter only to find out again, that it was the wrong table. "No," he managed another smile and shook his head. "No, I won't have it again, I'm sure."

A day spent in meditation wasn't as helpful as usual, but it did aid him somewhat. He found the small journal he had begun to keep after the war as per a suggestion of a trauma counselor. It helped him piece together what things he might have had to know. Everything from the moment Duo had told Heero he loved him (strange, calling Duo a "he") and their subsequent relationship, to the decision to write the letter only a day before this.

There were, he found, subtle differences as well as larger ones. There remained a certain desperation to the other Wufei's writings he could not recall in his own. It seemed at times that the other Wufei hadn't laid certain demons to rest, demons he, himself, had put aside years before. But that hadn't debilitated him, or his other self, as he had thought it might have. He had never wondered what might have happened to him had he never received pardon from Treize. But then, neither had this Wufei had a relationship with the dead commander. There had been no love lost between the pair of them. It was strange how things that he'd always thought were small, could have such a large effect on the outcome. And yet, things weren't that different either. He still worked at the Preventers, still had partnered with Duo, and still lived with his two closest friends. The sleeping arrangements were slightly changed, but that wasn't such a bad thing.

Spending the afternoon pouring over the belongings, reading the writings, and generally poking around gave Wufei a firmer handle on the situation. With a breath of preparation, he stood and wrapped a robe around his body. After taking in the room he stood in, he nodded and spoke aloud. "Well, I'm not sure if this is what you had in mind, whoever you are, but I'll do my best." And with that said, he entered the world he had never known.


	5. Fortuna Difettosa Della Ragazza

Chapter Five: Fortuna Difettosa Della Ragazza

* * *

There was something about waking up from a dream into a dream, Wufei found the next time he came to consciousness. The kitchen floor under him was hard and his arm hurt from falling backwards upon it. Not broken of course, just bruised.

He knew he had fainted. It wasn't that he wasn't cognizant of what had happened before. And for that moment, he felt that he could have easily remained unconscious just a little longer. He needed time and he didn't have it yet.

With a groan Wufei sat up. Duo was leaning over him. The other Duo that was. Worry on that beautiful face and Wufei felt somewhat guilty for being the cause of it.

He gave a wan smile to Duo and turned to look over the otherwise empty room. Where was... Heero?

"How ya feelin' Draggie?" she asked, kneeling and putting a hand to his brow.

He scowled in response. "Wufei."

She smiled. "Yeah.. yer okay. Dang, Wuff-babe. You had me scared there for a second. I mean, you just look..."

He sighed, reaching up and taking her wrist to push it away. "Onna, please.." his voice cold. Nothing made sense here. But if he could focus on one thing, maybe he could get out of this. Then he wouldn't think of her as Duo. Then he would know that he was in the wrong place.

She dropped her hand with a sigh and a slight frown of confusion marring her brow, "Yeah. Well, c'mon, buddy. Let's get you to the table, huh? You can have some breakfast." Her hands, just as slender, strong, but something felt different in them, slid under his arm and she helped him stand fairly effortlessly. She was a woman, but she was still surprisingly strong as he'd always found Duo to be. What else was the same here? How... how was he to know?

Pulling out a chair, half angry, half saddened eyes look him over and her lips twist into a wry grin. "Yanno? It's just my luck. Fall in love with two guys and they're both gay. Dunno why you and Heero never got together. Well, except for the fact he's got an icicle up his ass and you deserve someone better..." And true Duo fashion, she continues to ramble as she left him at the table. "I mean, shit, Wuffie. You knew I'd done my best. I'm thinkin' you knew what I was gonna say before I said it, and really, you shoulda had some idea on how to react. We've been living in the same house for what, two years now? I figure - "  
  
"Onna... please." He wasn't up for chatter and he wasn't sure if he wanted to hear this Duo look-alike talk in that voice that was just so... much more. Or less. Well, she was a woman. It would have to be yes.

"What the hell is up with the onna shit, Wu? I give me a flippin' break. I thought we had figured that one out during the war. What're you pullin' it on me again for, huh?"

He needed to think and he couldn't think with that prattling. "Where is Heero?" he snapped. Heero wasn't always the easiest of roommates, but he did help in curtailing Duo's rampages a bit. He'd come in, grab his lover around the waist and say something, Wufei never knew what it was, but Duo would laugh and then th-

Duo and Heero. He blinked. Here, Duo hadn't gotten to Heero.

In his world, or dimension or something, Duo had gone to Heero shortly after the war and told his best friend all about his feelings. She must have done the same here. Only that admission she'd apparently told Heero had ended up disastrously, not wonderfully as it had in his side of the universe or wherever they were. Heero might have been changing over all of that time, but it wouldn't have been the immediate and amazing change he'd noticed in the first year of his relationship with Duo. He never had that chance.

Duo stared at Wufei. Had he said something wrong? She... she... he had to keep that in his mind, it was otherworldly. They were so much alike. The same heartshaped face. She was strong looking for a woman, where the Duo he knew had been sweet looking for a man. Somewhere in between the face lent itself to both sexes well. She wore no makeup. But then, Duo had no need of such things to make that face beautiful. Had he not been an ex-pilot, intent on details, he might have easily missed the change in gender. The changes were so slight, yet incredibly telling. She was small breasted, hips only teacups worth of swell compared to the far more dramatic differences in most men and women he knew, Duo managed to change sex with almost no real change.

And now she was staring at him. And he would have to be a robotic baka like Heero to miss the hurt that distanced that gaze.

"Sure..." she growled, taking a step back with a scowl. "Forget it, _Chang_. I know a friggin' send off when I hear one." There was a dramatic push of the chair near him and Duo-like, the onna managed to overutilize her strength so that the chair clattered to the linoleum and skittered the additional foot to bump the pots drawer under the oven with a dull clank.

Wufei stared at the chair and heard somewhere in his mind, that Duo had left, that the footsteps were heading upstairs. Upstairs to a room. He could hear the voice, voices... Heero? It was muffled and he stared at a chair and felt as if he was dreaming, as if he'd forgotten where he had made his reservations and instead, had them made for him.

The chair. He knew the chair. He recognized the chair. With a start borne of desperation, Wufei stood, stalking the floor of the kitchen, picking up things and opening cupboards, leaving them open to prove to himself how things were the same. The sugar in the same place, the forks separated between long tines and short, the soup spoons in a separate drawer, the color of the faucet handles was still grey with that small crack along the quarter side of it - they were recognizable.

A sudden sound, the slam of a door upstairs rattles the teacups hanging under the upper cupboard and he reaches out with a calming sense as he stops them from bumping one another. Next would be..

_I woke up on the wrong side of the world, _

_Just walk away, from all that you might see._

_I can't rely on emotions you say you feel_

_I can't abide by this truth you've spun in me..._

_  
This can't happen._

_This just can't happen..._

There. He smiled softly. Duo's music pounding through the floorboards, down into the kitchen, taking over the entire house. Now, if things were right, Heero would come down and get a cup of coffee, kicked out of his room by an irate lover.

Wufei half turned, leaning on the sink and watching the door and almost sighed in relief with the appearance of the cold faced man.

"Heero," he spoke, wondering why he felt so tentative.

"Hn.." the grunt of Heero's eased Wufei's sensitive heartbeat. He could have smiled if he was a man to do something like that. And next, the cup of coffee...

Heero glared at nothing, obviously upset by the interruption. He crossed the kitchen, opened a cupboard and pulled down a light blue mug. The one that Duo had gotten for him at the end of the war. Filling it with water, Heero heated the cup up in the mircrowave and plucked a tea bag from the canister beside the sink, dropping it into the water and then staring at the wall.

"No.." Wufei corrected him gently. "We're not out of coffee. I just bought some last week."

Heero turned his head with confusion hiding under an angry glance. "What?"

The dream was coming back.

The song Duo always listened to when he was upset at Heero resounded down the stairs, pooling at the bottom of them and curling claws around the kitchen entryway.

_I'm scared of you_

_I'm scared of me..._

_I'm scared of all_

_That we've become..._

_I can't see you_

_I can't see me_

_There's nothing_

_under this dying sun..._

The strings in the piece had a way of getting on his nerves when it was too loud. Wufei had begged Heero to break the data tape more than once. Something in the song just struck him deeply in places he had wanted to forget, or maybe hadn't wanted to ever be aware of.

"Coffee..." He felt like the way the moment was going his reprieve from his nightmare was to be altogether too brief. "You always get a cup of coffee. Duo turned you on to it, remember? Last year."

Heero's eyes narrowed. Duo was a sore point right now. "I suggest you talk to her."

"Who?" Wufei asked, baffled.

"Duo." Heero could look unflappable and righteously angry at the same time, how he managed that, Wufei would never know. "Go talk to her. It's because of you she's playing that damned music."

"... oh... "Wufei watched Heero cup his mug of tea that was not coffee and shadowlike slink out of the kitchen.

Everything was the same. The kitchen was the same. Moments after Heero was gone, Wufei spun at the kitchen, fingers grasping doors, pulling objects off of shelves, the various foods and dishes, containers and napkins, metal bins and platters spilled around him. Panting, his face pale, Wufei stifled his sobs as he dragged one after another sweeping handful from the shelves, finding nothing and moving to the next shelf, holding the screams in as another and another shape tumbled out from under his fingertips, hitting the counter, breaking open, breaking apart, shattering on the floor. It all seemed right. But it was all wrong. Everything was wrong. Nothing fit properly because nothing fit with the Duo upstairs playing music which belonged or against the Heero that was drinking tea and walking without any emotion hiding under his angry mask.

The lower cupboard opened and he reached in, pulling out pans and cookie sheets, most having been used by Duo or Heero in their forays into housekeeping. It had all been things given to them at the end of the war, things to normalize the house, their lives. It hadn't worked with him, but he'd tried hard to let it. He'd wanted to have things normal. He had.. tried... he'd tried...

Wufei wasn't aware of the shouting. He couldn't hear it over his desperate bid to find something that wasn't right, something in his world that was so amazingly off kilter that he could be sure that it wasn't just a madness. Maybe the wrong person in the wrong spot, a coffee cup that meant the world to one of them missing, the wrong color of drapes. Something!

He'd made his way to the dish shelves, reaching around the conglomeration of plates, the blues and whites of perfection that Relena had foisted on them at the end of the war.  
  
The stack curled outward at the top as he pulled it forward, leaning at the edge of the shelf and slowly falling in toward his chest. He watched it, the blue and white coming together to make a strange purple, like a distant bruise, and as it came in, he braced himself for the crash, distantly, as if he were watching it all on a television screen.

A grip on his arm and then a wrench turned him around. Fingers laced into his shirt front and he lashed back, slamming the heel of his palm into a chin, knowing that it could only be a friendly, but unable to completely disengage himself from the training. He knew he held back if only a small amount and the flash of gold gave him a start. Still, it did nothing, knowing that he'd struck not only Duo, but a woman, to stop his reaction as her hold on his arm twisted it and her knee fitted behind his. It was a simple turn on Duo's part, meant to do what, he wasn't sure, but his defense left her on the ground, her arm around her stomach, and her mouth bleeding.

He'd been looking for something different, something wrong in this world, hadn't he? A woman, striking a woman. His face burned from embarrasment at the act and he turned away.

"Oh-ho no.." came the soft sound of disgust and while it was a voice he knew and didn't know, he still could not understand the import until a weight hit him from behind.  
  
Flung against the counter, Wufei turned and lashed out with a side kick. The kick swiping across where the body of his attacker should have been. But his attacker stepped back, catching his foot so that he was forced to round about with his other. The momentum to free him.

Letting him go, she came at him again, before his feet were on the ground a hit to his solar plexus left him gasping and he silently danced back, catching his breath and fighting against the stars in his eyes. Why? What was it that would have ever caused Duo to attack him?

But this wasn't Duo. This was a woman, and if he thought of that, he might remember to subdue her only?

Subduing her was not an easy task and before long, the kitchen showed signs of his inability to do just that. He'd held himself back, going to the point of saying, "Onna, onna, onna," under his breath (when he had it) as the pair of them moved the fight from the kitchen into the living room, trying to remind himself of exactly what sort of creature it was he was against.

At some point, a moment when he could not quite pinpoint, everything changed and the word was no longer an issue. His adversary was someone he could not subdue. Duo, this Duo, was as skilled in fighting, more so, actually, than the other. This Duo did more than street fighting. She met him on his own level and while he was the better of the pair, she was not far behind him. To simply try to subdue her without harming her would mean to acknowledge defeat. And at that very moment when he passed that line, Duo knew it. And horribly, he knew that this was what she had been pushing him toward. She was forcing him to recognize her as a threat.

Panting, Wufei backed somewhat, taking stock of the fighter he faced. She was breathing as hard as he, her face showed signs of a few hits and she held her arm close to her body. It did not stop her from using it but he knew her elbow had almost been broken, the tendons had to ache. Yet he was not afar himself from true pain. His ribs creaked strangely and his body felt keenly more than a few bruises yet to show.

And stranger than anything was the silence. Violet eyes stared into his and he felt his spirit retract. Those eyes said more within the silence than he'd ever heard in the flood of words that seemed to fill the air whenever he'd seen them before. But he fought that second breaking, fought it with all he had until with a half scream, he swung wildly at the braided madness who sidestepped.

The heel was at his throat, a leg held with steel quickness and eyes giving accusation along the long line of limb. Wufei bit back the continuance of the cry and licked his lips, tasting blood.  
  
"Why?" He hated the desperation in his voice.

A fine brow shot up on her face and his heart twisted along with falling into his gut. Those eyes... damn them if he didn't see the jester deep in them, and deeper still, the pain of being a child of L2 and the pilot of Deathscythe.

Her lips twisted and the fine voice slid along the extent of the leg, foot poised to show how close he'd been to being killed, how easily he could have been, and how he'd been defeated, by a woman. "Because, obviously you've thought that my saying I love you means that I'll go back on my words during the war." Her body shook but it wasn't from exhaustion, he knew that. "You forget, Chang. I may run and I may hide as well. But I never lie. I didn't lie then, when I told you I'd not have you treat me as anything but an equal, and I don't lie now. I don't give an colony's rat's ass about your damned manhood when it comes to my being able to do my job. And if you ever call me 'onna' again, I'll make sure you remember the day."

Looking deeply into his eyes, how could he look away? Her eyes captivated him just as her counterpart's always had. There, in those eyes, he saw the harbinger of death. Deathscythe's pilot was not gone, not by a simple change of sex. And it was all the more obvious when he saw the wry grin part her lips and anger flash out in violet streams. "And I don't think you ever will forget this day, will you?"

He could hear the strains of music, her music, rolling into the room. And then her foot was gone and Duo turned, running fingers deep into the tucked hair at her scalp. "Dammit, Wufie," she sighed and he wanted to cry from the pain in that voice. "Why don't you get to your room and sleep it off, whatever the hell you've got in your system. And don't come back down until you can at least be respectful to what we've been through together." She didn't look at him, just walked toward the kitchen, stepping on a broken lamp as she went, the crushing of glass under heel snapping him to reality. "I'll clean this up. You just get out of here."

Wufei stared after the retreating braid that swung lightly across an arched back and between strong shoulders, more slender but all the same strength and resolve in them he'd always cared about, and felt like a child being grounded for his bad behavior. Shame rose in him. Respect. He'd always respected Duo, at least from the end of the wars - when he'd come to realize the pilot was very much an integral part of their team and as capable as every one of the other pilots. And somehow he'd let her gender get in his way of respecting what may have been very much the same person. He'd treated her like the child and had ended finding himself in a switched role, with her having to act like the scolding mother.

A pain that had nothing to do with bruises filled him as he trudged up the stairs, stopping half way up to meet the blue, stone eyes of the first pilot. Heero took a moment before moving to the side, not saying a word, not giving a single word of advice on what to do, how to do it. Because this was a Heero who had never accepted Duo's advances. Because Duo was a woman. Here, Duo was a woman.

Wufei closed the door to his room behind him and leaned on it heavily. Then he slowly walked through his bedroom, taking notes of all those things that were the same, all those which were different, finally stopping at the desk and fingers trolling the edge of that photograph, the one from his dream. There they were, the same and yet so very different.

From there, his eyes lowered to touch on the papers, letters, and finally a small book that looked amazingly familiar. He laughed, painfully and small. What irony, to find the map to navigate this new world right under his fingertips all the time.

Taking the journal he'd begun sometime after the war, he laid himself down on the bed, tucking his hand about it, and closing his eyes, let his aching body fall into a half rest where he could hide, too.

- - - - - - - -

- - - - -

_((The music here is INCREDIBLE.. : ) It's written by Monda, background music by Antony Kostic with Monda singing, called Dying Sun. Monda is one of my favorite lyricists. I LOVE her use of words. She's got real power and a true connection with the way emotions are evoked, but not dragged out, of the listener. As soon as I get a URL for it, I'll put it up so everyone can hear it. So very fitting for the girlie Duo. Here are the lyrics in their entirity, as this wasn't a song fic, I didn't want to use them all, no matter how badly I wanted to use them all! hee hee _

_Dying Sun_

_by Monda_

I woke up

On the wrong side

of the world

Just walk away

from all that

you might see

I can't rely

On emotions

You say you feel

I can't abide

by this truth

you've spun in me

This can't happen

This just can't happen

I'm scared of you

I'm scared of me...

I'm scared of all

That we've become...

I can't see you

I can't see me

There's nothing

under this dying sun...

All messages

have been torn

to shreds

All signals

are dangerous

to the touch...

These whithering

promises

have turned to gray

You're killing

the inside

of me

This can't happen

This just can't happen

I'm scared of you

I'm scared of me...

I'm scared of all

That we've become...

I can't see you

I can't see me

There's nothing

under this dying sun...

Don't do this to me

I'm not ready

I'm scared of you

I'm scared of me...

I'm scared of all

That we've become...

I can't see you

I can't see me

There's nothing

under this dying sun...

_All right! This chapter was longer than the other. I'm not sure, but I originally had the idea for just the girl. Things went not the way I planned, as usual. Heh. Anyway, sorry for mistakes! If there are any. I have NaNoWriMo coming up and really wanted to get things out on everything before the first of the month so I could feel less guilty for taking off time to do my mini novel thingie. ;) _

_Vamp Queen: Yay! There ya go. An update and all. I'm glad you like it! It's fun, a bit sloppy and fun nevertheless. Hee hee._

_Magical-FlyingDragon: Okay.. did that make Heero more understandable? I hope so! If not, I'll keep working on making it plain! Tro and Quatre are there.. I suppose they'll be showing up soon. Things are going about.. half as fast - grrr... because the authoress was silly enough to be doing two fics at once. Bother that. Anyway, I think the female Duo is cool.. and I'm struggling REAL hard not to make her stereotypical. She's a girl, not girlie, as she'd tell me. Not sure how I'm doing, and I'm glad you're liking her! Hee. OH! And thank you for being so darned faithful in yer reviews! You're simply the best!))_


	6. Un Esprit de Nouvel Espoir

**Chapter 6: Un Esprit de Nouvel Espoir**

* * *

(ch rewritten)

: _male_ :

The house was empty when Wufei descended the stairs. The smell of macaroni and cheese was a welcome relief. It was something he'd have smelt in his world (as he'd begun to think of it). He entered the kitchen.

He peered into the insides of the cupboards. They were alike in so many ways. He'd be thrown, it seemed, by small things, little things, things that would build a case against himself. And how was he to manage that?

A soft step behind him and he spun to have his breath caught in his throat. A contemplative look on a Duo was something that he knew, in his world, did not bode well.

But Duo didn't say anything, only looked away and with a slight flush, went to the fridge. "There's mac n'cheese. I know you don't like it but if I made the shit you make, I'd have burned it."

"No, macaroni is fine," Wufei recognized an attempt to right things between them. It was just Duo's way and like the almost sameness in the cupboards had surprised him and delighted him and frightened him, so did the sameness in Duo.

"I'm sorry," Wufei stated again, not knowing exactly what he was apologizing for. Then, at the curious look Duo gave over his shoudler, Wufei winced and dug deep inside. "I mean. I know that, well, that we haven't been the best of friends lately, and I've been acting like a real umm, how do you say it? A real rat bastard, and… and…" he started to stutter because the considering look on Duo's face was getting deeper. "What?" he finally stuttered. "What did I say? Did I say something wrong?"

Duo put the tupperware container into the microwave, reheated it and then placed it on the table with a fork. "You want apple juice or coffee?"

Wufei blinked. He didn't like apple juice. And he wasn't so sure of how coffee was on his system. Were his taste buds different as well? His jaw clenched. "Ummm, whatever… you think is best?" he ventured.

Duo laughed and spun around, clutching Wufei around the waist. The chinese man jerked rigidly and uncertain, stared down at the violet eyes under his, closer than hers had always been because this one was taller, but still so much the same.

"You dolt!" Duo grinned and hugged him and refused to let him go even as he struggled. The proximity to this Duo was doing things to his body it shouldn't have been doing, not so soon, anyway. "You incredibly wonderful idiot. You know, an apology is more than enough. Who the hell are you and what have you done with my meanie head Wuffers?" he asked, pulling back and looking inquiringly at his friend.

Wufei blushed a pretty saffron and tried his best to calmly extricate himself from Duo's hands. "I - I don't know. That dream, it really messed some things up."

Duo's face clouded and he let go. "Sit," he ordered.

Wufei looked at the noodles before him and smiled at the memory. Duo had introduced him to macaroni and cheese two years prior. His Duo had done that. Not this Duo, apparently. Because this Duo had had Heero and had worked his magic on Heero, it seemed. "Erm, thank you. For making me dinner."

Duo chuckled and was busy, silent and busy. It seemed as if Heero had been something of a good influence on Duo here, as well. Though Wufei's Duo had her moments of quiet as well.

"Here," Duo put a cup of tea before him and some honey. Wufei picked up the honey and true to form, put two spoonfuls into his tea, stirring slowly as he thought.

"Wow.. don't tell me I'm having an effect on the indomitable Wuffers!" Duo grinned and sat across from him.

Wufei looked up, surprised. Then blushed somewhat. "I - I guess maybe you are." Then he thought to himself, 'Because you already have, though it wasn't you. It was someone almost like you.'

And that made him think of how the Wufei from here was managing his Duo. He smiled and almost laughed aloud at that thought. Considering the things she'd had to do to him to get his "head out of his ass" as she'd said it, the other Wufei was in for a real ride.

Duo tilted his head and when Wufei looked up, there was that same - look. Love, a sweetness of love, in those violet eyes. His Duo had looked at him like that many a time. And a small taint of resignation as well. That too. But the love was overpowering and Wufei laughed softly. "Sorry."

"No, don't be, Wuffie baby. Just never seen you look so relaxed. I mean, this dream. You wanna talk about it?"

Wufei glanced up surprised. "Talk? Oh." Then he tapped his spoon on the side of his cup and shrugged then shook his head. "No, I don't think I do. It's … private."

"Oooo!" Duo crowed. "A wet dream! Oh who did it have in it!" he grinned and leaned forward. "Was it Sally? Or that secretary that is always looking at you when we go in? What is her name?"

Secretary? Oh! Yes, "You mean Donna?" Wufei asked.

"Donna? Mmm, no. Don't think I know someone named Donna," Duo grinned. "What is her name, damn, you talk to her all the time. You've got the mind like a steel trap. What is it?"

"What is what?" came the question from the door and Duo bounced up in delight.

"Heya Quat! We're trying to remember the cutie from the front desk. The one that is always ogling Wufferooni."

Wufei turned in his chair, holding the teacup in his hand and glancing at Quatre. Trowa was not far behind and the spanish man had the same sense of quiet to him that had made Quat fall in love with him in the first place. Not that it had worked out in his world. And not that they had made it past the friend stage in this world. At least, as far as this world's Wufei was aware of according to his journals.

Damn, this was getting confusing.

"Hi Wufei! And I think it was Amanda," Quat smiled and sat down across from Wufei.

"You guys wants some tea? Or coffee? Heero made a pot before he went to work."

"Late shift again?" Quat asked politely.

"Yeah, damn Une and her good ideas. She says it like she needs a good man there during evening shift. I told her that I need a good man during MY evening shift. But he's so mission accepted. You know how that is."

The laughter ranging about the table was soft, easy, and sweet to the ear.

"So you two are on good terms again?" Quat looked at them both and changed the subject.

"Me and Heero?" Duo asked while Wufei nodded at the same time.

Taking Wufei's nod as truth, Quat grinned. "I'm glad. It was getting uncomfortable to be around you two for a while there. With Wufei's guilt and your unrequited stuff, I couldn't stay near you two for more than half of an hour."

"Sorry Q-man," Duo smiled and patted Quatre's arm as he went to go and get down more mugs.

"Coffee, please," came the order from Trowa who it seemed, hadn't forgotten the original question.

"Yeah," Duo continued with a grin. "Wufei here, had himself a dream and he came out of it all happy. I think he got some while he was dreaming."

Wufei knew he should be upset, but the fact that he was being ribbed about something Duo would have ribbed him over in his… well, the other… dammit. Anyway, it was enough to make him happy. Besides, if Duo had known how many times he'd dreamed of Duo. The other Duo, but this Duo. The same face, eyes, the same hands almost, a little less broad in the chest, a little less slim in the waist, but not a woman, a man - how would he have known what a male Duo would have looked like?

If this Duo knew how many times he'd dreamed those kinds of dreams, only with those same eyes, passionate eyes, in a man's face - of the muddled ways that he'd try and find complet-

"WUFEI!"

Wufei jerked out of his daydream at Duo's loud calling of his name and almost spilled his tea. The others were staring at him in amusement.

"So?" Duo asked again with a grin. "You were sitting there with a dumb look on your face. I think we might be on track."

Wufei turned pink and sipped his tea.

"So, lets name off the names. There's that gal, Sally, and then Susan, Amanda."

"Don't forget Taylor and Katie," Quat added, laughing.

Wufei raised his hand. "No, wait a minute. It wasn't a woman."

"What?" Duo's eyes stared wide. "Shit... Wu.." his chair tipped back and he fell.

Everyone got up, staring down at where Duo was staring at the ceiling mumbling something to himself.

"What is he saying?" Wufei asked.

"I'm dreaming, I think is what he's saying. Over and over again," Trowa chuckled and took his seat once more.

"Umm, Duo, I meant," Wufei blushed and rounded the table with Quatre, helping the braided young man to his feet and righting the chair. "I meant that I wasn't having a wet dream and there wasn't a woman. It was a fairy."

Duo blinked. "A fairy."

Blushing further, Wufei took just an extra moment to thank said fairy and brushed his hands across Duo's shoulders, pretending to clean off the lint from the floor. "Right, a fairy and she wasn't anything to write home about."

Duo looked up at him and Wufei felt himself go a little topsy-turvy. He had to get ahold of himself. This was insane! He didn't even know how things went here. Duo had told him he loved him, yes, but Heero! And Wufei wasn't sure what he thought of Heero and - well, there was the problem of - well, Heero. Simply put.

"You had a dream about a fairy and she wasn't anything exciting and you come down and you're thrown for a loop, you can barely talk, you faint on the floor -"

"Wufei? You fainted?" Quatre was up on his feet again. "What happened? Here, sit down. Are you okay?"

"I'm just fine," Wufei waved Quatre's hand away with a smile and sat down. "I was just - well it wasn't exactly ill, but I don't feel myself is all."

"He doesn't feel himself," Duo groaned. "He's having dreams about fairies -"

"And mean looking teddy bears," Wufei added with a chuckle.

Duo stopped, blinked and then went on, "-and mean little killer teddy bears, dude, this so sounds like a bad twentieth century horror flic."

Wufei laughed and tried not to notice how everyone was looking at him strangely. "Yeah, I guess it was kind of like that. I mean, she reminded me of you, actually… and she kept flying around and telling me things were going to be different and better and not making much sense and then I woke up here. And that is all I remember. Only I've felt like I am somewhere new, ever since."

Well, it was the truth as best he could put it.

Quatre reached out and touched his hand. Wufei allowed it and smiled at the blonde. He knew what Quatre was doing and he waited.

"That is just so crazy," Duo prattled on. "Like he's somewhere new. But I'm telling you guys, he's been acting funny ever since. It's so weird. I keep wondering what he's gonna do next. He actually apologized. Like a real apology to me today! And he almost let me give him coffee! It's crazy. And he keeps on staring at me sometimes, when he doesn't think I know it, but I'm the God of Death, hahahahaaa! I can tell!" And Duo waggled a finger at Wufei.

The expression was so like and unlike Duo that Wufei felt a surge of affection rise in him. If that had been the Duo he knew and loved he would have caught the finger in his hand and tried to turn it into a tussle. But he wasn't sure how that would come across here.

"You learn how to fight yet?" he asked as he stared at the Duo across from him.

"Learn? I can still kick your ass!" Duo beamed and bounced about in his chair. Wufei smiled and looked back to where Quatre's hand was still on his. Then he peered up at the blue eyes of the blonde and his expression faltered.

Quatre shook his head mutely and smiled, giving more fuel to Wufie's smile which returned, burned brighter.

"Am I still me?" Wufei asked, unsure if he would pass the test.

Quatre chuckled. He captured Wufei's ahdn and lifted it to look at it. He spread out fingers, traced lines before he relinquished it and then nodded. "Yes, just, more."

"More?" Duo asked in a worried tone.

Wufei was worried as well. "What do you mean?"

Quatre let go his hand and beamed at him. "You just aren't as afraid any more. It's nice and it suits you. I -" He flushed as he looked around the table. Quatre had a gift, a talent, and they all knew it, but it seemed that nothing was different here. He still felt uncomfortable taking up the limelight. "I don't know what that dream did, or if anything, but - I guess you're just different somehow. Still the same, but more free. More alive?" He laughed softly. "Am I making any sense?"

"No," Duo interjected but Wufei nodded silently and took Quatre's hand again, giving it a squeeze. He was the same here as well. That was a relief. They were all the same. Things were simply just a little different. He could manage somewhere where things were a little different.

"Good," Quatre sighed and looked relieved at the nod from his friend. Then he glanced at Trowa who watched this all with his impassive face and his expressive eyes. "We were going to go to a movie. Did you two want to come with us?"

Trowa left the eyes of his friend and glanced at Wufei and Duo. "It should be a good one. A documentary on the colonies."

Duo grinned. "I'll get my coat!" and he ran out.

After he'd left, Quatre reached over and touched Wufei once more. "Not just your defenses were changed," he murmured.

Wufei looked down, amazed at the way Quatre could just strip away pretenses. "No," he agreed. "No, not just the defenses were changed. But there are other problems in the way, Quatre."

Quatre sighed, nodding. "Yes, I suppose there are."

"He has Heero," Wufei spoke, knowing full well that Trowa knew as much as Quatre simply by virtue of being the one who watched, who saw clearly. He had no need to hide anything from Trowa. Quatre would tell him all anyway.

Quatre smiled a secret smile. "But Heero has room for you. Do you not have room for him?"

Wufei shook his head. "I don't know Heero yet. I don't know even Duo yet. It's all so new, I am not sure."

"Take your time then," Quatre patted his arm with a small frown of confusion and stood. "Take as much time as you need. We'll all wait for you, you know."

Wufei was overcome with a sense of how perfect things were, despite the struggles that were bound to be ahead of him, how perfect things could become. And it was a beautiful feeling. He smiled at Quatre and then looked at Trowa who, with a bit of silent humor, winked at him. Then with a laugh he nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I know."


	7. Confusione e Bellezza

Chapter 7: Confusione e Bellezza

* * *

:_female_:

Wufei slept some of the day easily away and woke around mid evening. Rising, he wandered the confines of his room in a daze, fingering various objects throughout the room until he ended again at the journal. With a sigh, heavy and deep in his heart, he settled down with it in hand and opened it to the first page. He had to see where things were the same, where they were different.

'_The first thing I guess I should talk about before anything else, is how it was when Milliardo gave me the katanas. I didn't cry then, to think of how Treize was dead. I haven't cried yet, but I will. I remember him, even now. I'd thought I hated him and in some ways I still do. But I've loved him as well. It's hard to love someone and hate them at the same time. In fact I have found it to be an impossibility. And now that I can finally say that aloud, I don't find it as complicated as I'd thought it to be. In fact, I can see many …_'

Wufei read voraciously. It was an entirely different war here, in this journal. Much like his own in so many respects, but in areas of difference. He had exulted in Treize's death. This Wufei had been glad for the end of a war, but found nothing to rejoice in the death of a loved one, no matter how necessary. And this Wufei had had to come to terms with one of those pilots watching his back, being a woman.

'_I've been instructed to speak of my partner today, to say what she means to me. I can say this. I've never been more glad for a friend than I am with Duo. But there was a time I was not glad. Many times, actually, when I saw nothing of value in a woman who had too much life in her and too little care about the world. _

_I know now, that the Duo I knew as a young man, was mostly a mask. And yet, nevertheless, she let me in to her painful world. The atrocities done against a child, that a child had to do, were like oceans to my puddles of pain. And all I know is that it has been and forever will be, one of the greatest of honors to have worked with someone so selfless, so intent and able, and someone so alive that I've learned to live from her. I only wish I could be more for her, to be enough to heal her. And it breaks my heart to see no one who can do for her what Treize did for me. I sometimes wonder if maybe…_'

He hadn't been able to sleep well that night, drifting off while reading still, sometime in the wee hours of the morning. The sharp rap on his bedroom door startled him awake however. "What?" he called.

"Time to get up, Chang," came the distant voice on the other side. He winced. She was still mad.

It was, in some ways, like his marriage. He could already feel the old weaknesses come back just by hearing her anger. She was disappointed in him too.

Grumbling, he raised himself, dressed, and wandered downstairs to enter in and get himself some tea. His blue mug was still there, the morning sunshine broke in over his head and he turned with the mug in his hands and stared at the bent head of Heero.

Should he say good morning? He hadn't said good morning in his world. Heero was the one to say it every morning. It hadn't been much, but it had been something. And here, there was no acknowledgment of his even having entered the room.

Frustrated, Wufei gave in to the sense of oppressive silence and put his tea cup down on the table, pulling a chair out for himself. "Good morning," he tried quietly.

Heero looked up from a cup of tea himself and glowered.

"You know, coffee might work better at waking you up," Wufei tried politely.

"Hn," a grunt as Heero stood and walked to get a jar off of the counter and returned, putting it before Wufei.

Wufei lifted the top and looked inside. Honey. He didn't like sweeteners in his tea. He didn't like anything that sweet. That was Heero's and Duo's line. Heero was the one that Duo had changed, not him. Not in his world.

"How many spoonfuls?" he asked.

"Two," the other expilot said.

Wufei stared at the honey with distaste and then sighed. "If you try coffee, I'll have honey," he stated.

Heero stared at him.

Wufei shrugged. "Duo's mad at me right now. Calling me Chang," and was that a small smile of amusement on Heero's face? "I don't feel like honey. But then, you don't want to wake up properly and I know for a fact that coffee works best." He sounded like Duo for heaven's sake! He flushed and looked down at the teaspoon and the honey.

Heero said nothing but with a soft sound that was either annoyance or amusement, stood up and walked to the counter. A short time later the scent of coffee grounds filled the kitchen and with a groan, Wufei poured honey into his tea.

A short while later, the two men sat drinking their respective drinks with thoughtful looks upon their faces and the door to the kitchen banged in. Duo danced in and laughed. "You guys look like a funeral. Who died?" and just like that, the Duo whirlwind was in the room.

She didn't talk to Wufei and Heero kept glancing at him as if trying to tell him to do something, but he didn't know what to say. He could only watch as Heero was suddenly the subject of major discussion on how coffee was going to kill him, but how he was finally becoming a real human being and would he like two pancakes or six?

Heero barely escaped with his life and shot a reproachful glare at Wufei as he ran out of the kitchen, his coffee finished and his laptop under his arm.

And then, horrible stillness settled over the kitchen. Wufei sat in the silence and wished he'd been offered a pancake, just because it would have made things easier. And he didn't know what to do, but he felt like it was in his hands, in his grasp. He desperately went over the journal. He knew the struggle, from hindsight, that the other Wufei had gone through after finally accepting Duo's gender. But that was when they were kids. This time, they were adults and she was by all rights, very angry with him.

No, there was that word again. Disappointed. She was disappointed with him and it made him feel two inches tall.

"Honey, Chang?" she asked in a cold voice as she reached for the pot.

He looked up in alarm and then away again, noting how cold her eyes were. "No thank you. I've already had some."

She did not seem surprised and he assumed it must mean that he normally had honey in his tea. He wasn't sure he'd be able to do that. He liked his tea plain. He always had.

The misery lasted a short while longer before she stood and patting a stomach well rounded (he couldn't help but notice) from a good breakfast, turned and dumped her plates into the sink and then headed out of the house, making sure to slam the front door for good measure.

Wufei took a deep sigh, stood, did the dishes, and rinsed his cup, letting the tea season the mug. Then he too, made his way down to the garage.

But the problem was, there was only one thing left. A motorcycle. He blinked. It was red, flashy, and looked fairly dangerous. It wasn't that he didn't know how to ride. It was just, well…

After hotwiring the thing and cursing every cotton candy pink fairy he knew under his breath, Wufei made his way across town. This wasn't turning out well. He wanted to go home. It wasn't the same, but he was comfortable there. And besides, there wasn't _his_ Duo and Heero here. These two were like oil and vinegar. Neither very appetizing alone.

He made his way into the Preventer's office and nodded to the young woman at the secretarial box. "Where is Amanda?" he asked calmly. He and Amanda had been slowly making their way toward saying the magic words and going out on a first date. He wouldn't mind having a friendly face around right now.

She stared at him in confusion. "Amanda?"

"Yes, the girl who normally works here? Amanda Moore?"

She shook her head with a frown. "No, Officer Chang. Donna. I'm the only one who works here. We don't have an Amanda."

He stared at her blankly, feeling his face pale. "Oh," he murmured and then turned, swiftly walking away. He'd been wondering about other things, but he'd simply assumed the rest of the world would be almost, if not exactly, like the one he'd left. What if he wasn't even in the same department? What if he wasn't in the same office? He turned, blushing and returned to her.

"Umm, Donna," he ventured.

"Yes, Officer Chang?"

"Oh, please. Just call me Wufei," he really could do with a friendly face.

"Of course, Wufei," she smiled cautiously.

"I.. well, I seem to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Or rather, the wrong side of my life, it feels more like. I've hit my head and I'm a tad dizzy, and for the life of me, I really can't remember where I'm supposed to go. What number is my office?" He sounded like an idiot. He felt like an idiot. She was staring at him like he was an idiot. "Sorry," he mumbled, ashamed.

"N-n-no. No problem, sir." She smiled again, but it was more distant. "You're in number 862."

"Thank you." He fled.

- - - - - -

He found his office rather readily, even seeing a few faces he knew, though he was not certain if even the names would be the same here.

Voices in his office arrested him, however.

"No, I don't care what your gut is telling you. I'm not about to start talking to him just like that."

"Duo.."

"Don't Duo me, Heero Yuy! I've been through this with you, he saw it. He knows what a mess I'm in and… ah shit, Heero. Don't. Look. I'm sorry. It was hard. Of course it's hard. It's hard because I love both of you and both of you damned men don't care about anything with tits."

He winced at the crassness of her language. Duo, female Duo, was still that L2 street rat under it all. He would do well not to forget it.

"Duo," Wufei heard Heero try again. "Listen. He's not himself."

"I _know_ he's not himself! He's taken to calling me onna again! That tells me volumes. I told him I loved him. He lost all respect and care for me and he turned back into Mr. Frigid Dragon Queen again."

Wufei didn't know what got into him, but he felt his heart leap into his throat when he realized he'd stepped into the doorway. "I'm not sure queen is an appropriate name," he muttered somewhat snidely, but holding back. He wasn't the type to go out of his way to make Duo miserable. It just was happening that way. "And," he added desperately, "the knock on the head did a number on me. I'm sorry for calling you onna, today."

He didn't wait to hear what she would say, instead he went and sat down at the nearest desk, picking up a report and staring at it. He hadn't a clue what had happened here, he'd never be able to fill out a report.

Silence behind him. Then slowly, "Uh, Chang?" that was Heero.

"I know, I know," he muttered. "She's pissed and I'm an ass. I've already insulted the secretary down at the front desk, I had to hotwire my motorcycle because I couldn't find my keys, and I haven't a clue what I did yesterday on this damned report! Who the hell is Officer…" he stopped and pulled the paper closer to his eyes, "Kah-… kadawalski? What kind of name is that?"

He turned then, waving the report in front of him and stopped, noticing that both of the other officers were staring at him.

"What? What now?" he growled. "Did I cut myself shaving? I didn't shave this morning. I know that. I couldn't find the shaving knife and all there were in the damned bathroom were these stupid electric razors. I haven't a clue how to turn one of those blamed things on!"

A moment of silence and then softly, Duo spoke. "That's my desk. You're sitting in my desk. And Kadawalski is our team leader, the electric shaver is the one I got you for Christmas last year, and your keys are probably in the garage, hanging on the nail next to the door where all of our keys are kept. Are you feeling okay?" And she stepped forward.

"I'm fine, onn-" and he shut his mouth tightly and sighed, rubbing his head. Dammit, no. He wasn't fine. "Sorry," he sighed. He seemed to be doing an impossible amount of apologizing since waking up the day before.

Heero frowned and moved behind him. When the japanese man's hands touched his shoulders, Wufei tensed. Then, slowly he felt the warmth of those hands seep into his skin and Heero slowly began to move his fingers into Wufei's muscles.

The tired officer closed his eyes and tried to keep from crying or from killing something. And Duo hadn't said a word. He opened a wary eye and stared at her.

Was it possible for a woman and a man to look almost identical, yet for the woman to be gorgeous and the man to be nothing exciting? Not that his Duo hadn't been beautiful. It was just a manly beauty and Wufei had no interest in men, not really. He wanted a woman, he needed women. He just hadn't exhibited that need since his wife had died. He'd been almost ready to try to make a go of it with Amanda. Only Amanda was now Donna and didn't look or act anything alike.

But Duo did. Duo was the same here. There were subtle differences but the look she was giving him was the same look his Duo would have given him. One of exasperation and worry. And he didn't want Duo to be worried.

"Look," he mumbled. "I know I'm acting crazy. I'm sorry. I don't even know which way is up anymore. Maybe I should just go," and he stood, out of Heero's hands.

She was before him and she pushed him bodily back into his chair. He went almost willingly, trying to keep from shouting out 'onna' at her and getting himself beat again in the process.

"No, Wufei," she spoke and he knew he was in trouble, but not as big of trouble as when she'd used his last name. That is, if the two Duo's did things the same when it came to names. "No, you aren't going anywhere. Heero is going to get Sally Po, I'm going to watch over you, and we're going to get your head looked at. You've really hit yourself hard and you're acting strange, you're right. But only strange about some things."

"About some things?"

"Well, you found your coffee cup this morning, and you had honey, and you did your morning ritual, albeit at three in the morning, but you did it…" she grinned and his heart quickened in pace. The same, side long grin, but in a face that he wanted to touch. And she was not mad at him anymore. Duo wasn't mad at him any longer.

He reached out and grabbed for her braid. She stiffened and he didn't apologize because he'd never touched Duo's braid. Not while Duo was awake anyway. He knew what it meant and it was as long, as fine, and as beautiful as it had been on her male counterpart. But she didn't pull away.

"Why did you fall in love with me?" he murmured. He understood why the other Duo did. The other Duo loved him, had come to accept him, and had seen a friend in him. But the other Duo was a man, someone who didn't need to see him as something worthy of love, someone able to provide, someone stronger and better than him. With the other Duo, he'd been a man to a man, an equal. To a woman? What did he have to offer a woman, really? And to a woman who was far more alive, more beautiful, more talented, and a better fighter than he? She was just like Meilan. She was better in everything.

"Because you're my friend," she whispered and smiled at him with eyes that pained but did not cry. Duo rarely cried, even as a woman. He could tell because so many things were the same.

He shook his head. "Not good enough," he murmured. "Why?"

Duo tilted her head, confused. "Because you let me buy you an electric razor. Because you eat macaroni and cheese with me. Because you watch stupid Schwartzenegger films after seeing old black and whites with me. Because you listen when I talk and respect me and treat me like an equal instead of like a stupid girl trying to make it in a man's world. Because you taught me to defend myself both inwardly and outwardly. Because of who you are, Wuff-babe."

He felt his heart sinking inside of him. "But," he whispered. "But what if I'm none of those things? If I've done none of those things?"

Duo stared at him, her eyes speaking volumes and after a long moment where Wufei wasn't sure what would happen next, she opened her mouth to speak.

And was immediately interrupted by the door opening. "What is going on here?" Sally walked in with a stern look on her face. Behind her, Heero stood with his impassive face and his arms crossed over his chest.

Duo stood and brushed at some dust on Wufei's pants. "He hit his head the other day."

"I see, and when was this?"

"About oh eight hundred hours," Heero responded.

Sally nodded briskly. "And symptoms? Come on, Chang. We have to get you to a CAT scan."

"What? I don't need a CAT scan! Get your hands off of me, onna!" he snarled.

Sally grimaced. "Same old stubborn ass, I see," she mumbled and Wufei, a little behind on what had been said, breathed an inner sigh of relief. It seemed he was allowed to call other women onna, just not Duo.

"He can't remember various things. He didn't know where his keys were but he knew how to hotwire a vehicle. He forgot who Donna was and she reports he asked her where his office was. He sat at my desk when he entered and he has been calling me all sorts of nasty names!" Duo crowed and Wufei grimaced.

"You are getting too much fun out of this, Maxwell," he growled again. He knew this side of Duo well.

Heero smirked and Duo grabbed onto Wufei's other arm. "C'mon Wufferbub. We're gonna go to get a little, ickle, widdy shot.."

"I'm going to kill you," he snarled.

"That's _his_ line, Wuff-babe," Duo grinned as she passed Heero who took up the rear.

Wufei would have fought harder, only that he knew that Duo acted extra happy, extra giddy like she was, when she was worried, scared to death, actually. And that as soon as Sally was gone, she would more than likely drop the mask. But for now, he could play along.

And only hope that the brain scan didn't give away his secret.

- - - - - - - - - -

- - - -

((_Okay, two chapters in a row, but I needed to WRITE today! Hee hee… I'll get back to the bigger fics in a tad bit. Christmas is busy and making gifts seems to take up a LOT of time. We're getting more diverse though and I'm loving it! Heh._))


	8. Murs S'élevants

**Chapter 8: Murs S'élevants**

* * *

(ch rewritten)

:male:

Wufei sat down gracefully and stared out the window. It had been a good day for the most part. A good few days, really. He'd been going to the journal every chance he got, trying to keep up on the other Wufei, melding it with himself. But it was still difficult. The other Wufei didn't write about everything and he still found himself slipping up.

Things matched up for the most part, most of the people he knew and if he kept his mouth shut, he could follow along pretty easily. Of course his partner was somewhat concerned with his health and he had forced him into Une's office only that morning.

"I'm not sure, Commander. He's been out of it and I think we need a vacation."

Une had had the foresight not to shout at her braided officer for his audacity in making decisions for Wufei. Instead she'd raised a brow and turned to look at Wufei. "What do you think, Chang?"

What did he think? He thought he might have to get another job, actually. It wasn't working out. He'd had to follow Duo's lead most of the time, but the small slip-ups were making him seem like an early Alzheimer's patient.

He wanted to say he should take a vacation, to agree, but the old Wufei would never have taken a vacation. So instead, he kept his mouth shut and his face calm.

Une lifted a brow.

"Look, Commander. I'm his partner," Duo broke in. "I know him like I know myself and I'm telling you that he'd rather run himself into the ground than go take a break when he needs one. I think that the Hilime case did something to him and he's been having bad dreams and I'm worried about him.."

Une's hand raised for silence did absolutely nothing.

"Shit, Lady! I mean, he's messed up! He can't remember anything and if you don't send him on vacation, I'll kidnap the justice bound idiot and take him away."

Wufei opened his mouth to interject but Duo stepped in front of him with his hands on his hips. "No!" the young man glared at him. "Don't you dare say a single word you damned rock headed jerk! I'm your friend and I'm your partner and I'm going to take you someplace and force you to relax. And if you try to stop me, I'll tie you up and chloroform you and then I'll drug you and keep you in bed for weeks, or until you do what I say. And I don't give that rat's ass you were talking about, about what anyone has to say about it, least of all you! If you think that our little personal issues are gonna ge-"

"Duo!" Une's voice cut through the litany. Wufei smirked past Duo's shoulder and met her bemused expression.

When Duo spun to glare at their commander, Wufei had a sudden desire to reach out and trace the length braid running along Duo's spine. He was bristling and the ridges of tension lined his shoulders. The slender man straightened for battle and stared at her. He continued in a low voice, "I'm not sure how I can explain it to you, Commander. But he needs rest. And he isn't the one to say he'll take it because he's never taken a sick day and Heero and I have to wrestle him down to make him take a weekend off sometimes!"

"I understand this fact, Officer Maxwell. Thank you for bringing your concern before me. You may go." Une's hard voice brooked no refusal and after a long staring match between herself and Duo, the braided man sighed and left.

After the door closed, Une looked at Wufei. "Wufei."

"Yes, Lady."

"Your partner is concerned."

"He is, Lady."

She smirked. "I wonder how correct he is."

"When it comes to my health, Lady, he is wrong. I am as well as I'll ever be." He stiffened.

"I'm sure you are, but I still think I'll be putting you on a leave of absence."

"Why?" he felt a rush of concern. Was he that unable? Was it that apparent?

Leaning forward on her desk, she'd grinned. "Because I don't want to have Duo breathing down my neck for the next week. Because he can be very adamant about things like your health, and because I've noticed something amiss between the two of you and I think you need to figure it out. When you come back, Officer Chang, I expect Duo to be relaxed and you to have worked through whatever difficulites you've been having with your partner." She rose and put a hand on his shoulder then sighed. "Wufei. I need you two to work together, and you both are off. I can't put your lives in danger. Come back when you two are right again."

"Or?" he clenched his jaw. If only she knew.

"Or I'll have to get you both new partners."

And the interview was over.

Wufei rubbed his brow and thought back on the quiet ride home with Duo. Duo had been given the time off as well. A week. That was all. They had a week.

Duo went upstairs immediately upon coming home. Upstairs to Heero. He could hear the pair of them talking in low murmurs now and again, the sound of bumps and minute thuds coming from their room where someone walked around and … well… whatever else they were doing.

Wufei buried his head in his hands. Dammit. He didn't want to think about what was going on upstairs. He didn't want to think about what he might have done if he'd had Duo to himself. He didn't want to think, period. Things were going just fine. If he didn't get caught up in the romantic mess that was this situation, things would be okay.

A hand on his shoulder broke in on his … proscribed not thinking. Startled, he turned to see the quieted look that was this world's Heero Yuy. Of all of the things in this world changed, Heero was the most obvious. Still the perfect soldier in so many ways and yet, with a quiet to him that seemed foreign.

"I was just thinking," he muttered almost to himself. He hoped Heero would release his shoulder before he leaned into the touch. He missed being touched. Duo had touched him all the time when he was a she. But this Duo kept apart, burned too often by the colder Wufei who… belonged… here.

"So I noticed," Heero's calm reached about them both and Wufei dropped his head again and forced himself to accept the warmth that was radiating into his body from the simple hand on his shoulder.

"Duo sent me down to see if you wanted to talk." Heero spoke simply.

Wufei shook his head.

"Then perhaps you'll get packed."

"Packed?" Wufei looked up in surprise.

"Yes," Heero's mouth twisted. "We're going… camping."

Camping. In some people's minds, it entails getting into a camper, or a truck with a tent in back, heading to a conveniant camp ground, pitching the tent and getting one's water from the spigot that runs alongside the road. Concrete wash rooms and pine bed tenting sites, the usual run of tenting is an act of leisure.

All of which would not explain why he was hanging off of the side of a cliff right then, holding onto a rope and with a hook set deeply into the stone next to him, praying that Heero would be able to hold them both if the tenuous hold on the rock slipped.

"Clamped in!" a call came from below and he breathed a moment then readjusted his hand on the rope, pulling out the other hook and fixing it into the rock face alongside his shoulder. "Clear!" his call echoed off of the cliff wall and he refused to look down.

"I'm off!" again came the call from below. He could hear Duo's breathing as the other man worked his way upwards.

"Watch out for the upper lip of the overhang on the left hand side," Wufei called back down, "It has moss on it."

Heero, above, chuckled. "At least you tell him," his low voice reaching Wufei's ears.

"I was trying to get over seeing my life flash before my eyes," Wufei looked up at where the dark haired man smiled down at him.

Heero had a nice smile.

He noticed Heero's eyes going past him to where Duo was most likely and he wondered at the sinking feeling accompanying that look. Heero and Duo. This entire trip so far, all six hours of it, including the climb and the hike to the mountain, had taught him one thing. Heero and Duo were strong, a unit. And there was no room for a third.

Not that he'd be okay being a third to begin with.

Not that Heero would be okay with a third either.

Which brought him back to wondering why Duo had told him he loved him.. or loved his other half.. or the other Wufei. It tended to be confusing. Duo wasn't leaving Heero any time, it was plain that Duo loved Heero deeply. And Heero was kind, but - well, it wasn't right. Duo shouldn't have to be shared. Heero shouldn't have to share.

Dammit, he wasn't sure he wanted a part of that anyway. If there was a part of it to begin with? He wished he'd been there at that conversation. Had Duo just told him because he felt the need to? Why was it Duo even felt the need to share that information when he was firmly entrenched in another relationship? Heero obviously gave Duo everything he needed.

"Duo! Wu, hold!" a cry above and Wufei clenched tightly onto his climbing hooks, hearing the sudden whip of rope whizzing out behind him. There was a sharp snap and he lost his footing, the rope taut above him and below him. His arms strained and his shoulders felt the sudden heat as he clung to the rock. Pressing his cheek against the stone he listened to the wind a moment and then almost wept at the sound of a very alive voice rising up.

"Damn! Almost bit it there, guys!"

He and Heero were silent. They could both hear Duo work at rediscovering the rock wall. A particularly nasty jerk on the rope put Wufei to feeling uncertain and he gripped the rock more tightly, praying in his mind that this would be over soon.

Strange. To think a pilot would be afraid of heights.

"Not heights," he muttered. "Falling."

"We won't let you fall," came the soft voice above him and Wufei winced, not realizing he'd spoken loud enough to be heard.

But then, Heero had always been more able to hear, see, do, than the rest of them. It was part of what made Wufei feel eclipsed much of the time. It was why, here, Duo loved Heero and Wufei, the right Wufei, was still in the wrong place.

The tension on the rope eased. Duo laughed in wild delight then worked his way up toward them. "It wasn't the moss. It was a loose rock," he beamed as he came alongside Wufei and reached out, patting his friend on the arm. "Your go."

Wufei opened his eyes and stared into those violet orbs and thought about how silly it all was. He didn't need Duo here any more than he needed Duo there. A female Duo - a male Duo, why was he even thinking he should be granted a chance? He really was stupid. Just because he happened to be gay, and Duo happened to be a man, didn't mean the pieces would ever fall into place so that he would have his dream.

Somehow that damn fairy had made him believe that was exactly what would happen.

"Wuffers?" a soft query and Wufie opened his eyes to see Duo's concerned look upon him.

Once Duo was sure he had Wufei's attention he grinned and jerked his head upwards. "Your go, buddy. I'm anchored."

"Oh, sorry.." and Wufei looked at the hooks in the rock and upwards to where Heero was silently watching them. With painstaking care, Wufei forced his trembling thoughts to leave his mind and focused his brain instead on the act of climbing.

Once Wufei reached Heero, the perfect soldier/perfect man made his way up to the crest of the cliff. From there, they waited until they got the okay and Heero, anchoring a rope that was already tied to a tree there, helped them both climb up. Wufei came over first and he quickly unclipped himself and anchored himself to the rope behind Heero. He wasn't needed because Heero could pull them both up and not break a sweat (a bit of exaggeration, but it was how he felt really) but he felt like he _should _be part of it somehow.

Duo clambered up over the cliff and collapsed into Heero who stumbled and fell into Wufei so that the three of them ended up on the ground with a breathless, laughing Duo atop them. "Damn guys, I thought we were gonners there for a second. Glad I'm Death Incarnate! You guys have no idea how lucky you are!" He stood, unclipping himself and staggered to the tree to catch up the supply rope by which he could tug their packs up.

Wufei lay on the ground with the weight of Heero on his legs and the clouds overhead and shuddered at the thought of any of them having fallen.

"You made it," came the gentle voice. Wufei turned from the clouds to see Heero's warm gaze looking down at him. Since when did Heero look at anyone warmly? Wufei closed his eyes, afraid of the new species of shudder that ran through him from something he didn't understand; jealousy and need intertwined. Jealous of Heero's warmth that took in Duo and made Duo his and his alone. Need borne from that very warmth, wishing he were wrapped in it as well, that he was kept safe by the love that shone there as well.

Heero scooted up next to him and Wufei felt a tug at his waist. He sat up in shock and then looked at where Heero was working at getting his harness off. "I can do it," he gulped.

"Yes, but you're the one we're taking care of this time," Heero said softly, and Wufei wondered back to the journal, if there was anything about taking care of someone. Heero made it sound like this was the normal run of things. Or maybe a returned favor?

"Really.." he gulped. He didn't want Heero to touch him. He didn't want to know what his body would do in response to that touch. He hadn't been touched in his pelvic region for years now. He was… he was…

"I can take care of it!" he all but shouted and scrambled away from Heero, ignoring the look of hurt on that normally calm face as he knelt to the side and worked at getting the harness off. His fingers hurt and trembled and he felt like he might cry.

"What's going on?" Duo questioned them. Wufei turned from them both, working at his harness, knowing that he would take a while, but needing this distance from his friends.

"Wufei," Heero, close, how did he get so damn close without making a sound

"Please," Wufei could hear himself beg and knew it was unlike the other Wufei, knew that he was begging because he would do something he would regret if he didn't distance himself, "just let me do this alone."

He didn't hear Heero leave, but he knew he was alone some time later, fingers still wrapped in harness, staring out into the open sky and wondering what he was going to do. How could he survive the pain in his chest.


	9. Le Fantôme De la Beauté

Le Fantôme De la Beauté

* * *

_:female:_

Duo stood just left of the doctor, staring at the screen while her friend went through the long, drawn out process of getting his brain scanned. "

"I don't get it," the girl frowned, tugging on her braid in concern and setting her hip on the edge of the console.

"Duo, get off," Sally snapped and shook her head. "I don't understand either. Will you get off please? I knew I should have left you with Officer Chang, only he wouldn't have been able to keep still with you prattling at him the entire time."

Duo leaned in again and tapped the screen, still half sitting on the console. "See this… you've got different areas of activity. Its almost as if things are different, as if his very brain is changed? How can that be?"

Sally shook her head again, lost. "It's not that different. Just in the area of the damage. He has damage where he shouldn't have. And last year's incident on his brain is not there. I mean, there is no sign of the damage and I'm thinking if I went down and checked his skull, he'd have no sign of the stitches. I'm going to have to report this to Une." Standing up, she sighed, looking through the observation window. "Okay, Officer Chang. You may rise. Please get dressed." Then letting off the intercom button, she stared pointedly at Duo. "Get. Off. My. Equipment. Officer. Maxwell."

Duo stood and walked around Sally's chair to press herself to the glass and gaze down at the man who stood in his usual grace. "Sally, don't tell Une yet? Could you give me a chance? I think… there might be something here."

Sally scoffed, "Duo, my dear Duo… if I don't tell Une and then I do tell her and she finds out I've not told her for a few days, do you realize where my ass will be?" she smiled beatifically upon the other girl.

Pressing her palm on the glass, Duo sighed. "Okay.. okay.. but let me be with you. I want to talk to her. See… Heero said something to me earlier. And I'm starting to think maybe he's right."

- - - - - - - - - -

Wufei sat on the edge of the scanning device and stared at the great hole he'd just stuck his head in for the last hour and a half. Closing his eyes, he sighed. Somehow, this wasn't going to work.

Pushing off of the edge, he stood, walked to the door and passed through it. Meaning to go to Une's office, he was stopped by Heero's sudden rising from where the man had been in the outside hall.

"Chang," Heero's eyes glanced across him in careful measure of who he was. He couldn't help but wonder if his Heero, Duo's Heero would notice the differences in his replacement. It seemed this one had.

Wufei raised a hand for silence. "I can't explain it to you, Yuy. I don't know how. But I am going to do my best to keep it from hurting anyone."

"Just you're being here is hurting everyone." Heero's voice is cold, cold as it had been when they were young boys and piloting. Wufei could look up and see those azure depths regarding him, deciding if he were a liability or not.

"Then I will leave," Wufei sighed, sensing that there was something here that Heero had not the skill to divulge, to say. This Heero was as stunted as he'd been in the war, maybe a little better, but with neither of them knowing how to truly make a connection, they were left to try and give their words in the pressure of their stares.

"You will not. That will hurt Duo even more." Heero straightened, his face one of alabaster, still and unchanging. It was a matter of Duo then, was it? But Wufei knew, that was what it was for himself as well. Anything for Duo. They owed so much to him.. her… was that the same?

Suddenly desperate to know, Wufei reached out and grabbed Heero's arm, ignoring the way the other man flinched away. "We have to talk. Please."

Raising a brow impassivly, Heero looked down at where Wufei's hand still held his forearm and waited until the chinese pilot pulled back, then nodded. "Come."

They walked through the Preventer's offices, arriving finally at a supply closet which opened to Heero's access card. Upon the door opening, however, Wufei found that he wasn't in a closet so much as a miniature warehouse for electronic gadgets and hardware and software. As Heero was in the technological and hacking division as well as planning, it made sense he'd have a means to be here.

The door closed behind them, Heero touched a switch on the wall and a florescent light flickered, darkened, flickered again and then came on with a soft distant buzz Wufei didn't even notice. The light, pale and ghostlike, turned the two men into phantoms. But maybe, in a way, they both were, Wufei thought. Neither of them truly alive, neither of them yet aware of what they were still missing. He had seen glimpses in the other Wufei's journal. That other one had found something that he wasn't sure he would know what to do with had he ever discovered it.

Wufei sat upon a large plastic barrel and glanced up at Heero. With a wave, he smirked. "Might want to sit. This could take a while."

But in the end, the story was surprisingly short because Heero did not interject like Duo might have. Or even like the other Heero might have. This one merely listened, asking a clarifying question here and there of facts alone, but otherwise not interested in the human aspect of it all. Wufei finished and then sat in the silence that stretched, not sure what was bound to follow.

"Do you believe me?" he asked finally.

Silence… more silence, then Heero took a breath and nodded with, Wufei noted, only the slightest show of hesitation.

"Some of it," Heero finally stated, and Wufei wondered what the man would have thought if he'd described the things that had effected this change. Now that would have been a hard one to explain and not seem crazy. He already was crazy enough, apparently.

"It does explain things," Heero leaned back against the wall and rubbed his hand briefly across his jawline. "I had noticed some great changes in you. But I am unsure if it is something as science fiction as dimensional travel. Yet your CAT scan showed some anomalies."

Why would Wufei be surprised to discover that Heero had seen the CAT scans even though they'd been just finished with them? He smirked, shaking his head and tucking his hands before his knees. "Yuy, you have to help me. I think the reason this was done.."

"For Duo," Heero finished for him. "I agree. But it is… highly unusual."

Wufei tightened his hands about one another and then slowly nodded in agreement. "Highly so."

"But you cannot leave. That would cause more pain than it would alleviate."

Wufei agreed silently and then, into their quiet that they're growing, "I'm going to resign from the Preventers. I don't understand the system well enough. And Duo can find herself another, better partner." His bitterness at finding himself so lacking tainted his words, making them sour upon his tongue.

Maybe he'd been hoping that Heero would say otherwise, encourage him, tell him he'd be given aid in his mockery of this new life. He was sorely disappointed, however. No such offer came from the other pilot and when they left the electronics closet and made their way to Une's office, he could not help but think this was all one big mistake, every moment of it.

Not to mention how… strange it was that Heero seemed to accept all of his story so easily.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Wufei remained bent over his journal. Or his other half's journal, his fingers tense in his hair as he read, trying to decipher the secrets that would lead him to make the right turn, the correct decision when it came to this female Duo.

Strange, but because Duo was still Duo in so many ways, he wasn't as beset with concerns of Duo not being good enough. Rather, because this Duo was that same Duo yet female, he found he had a failing in respects to how he saw women. They were either below him or highly unattainable. Unlike the other Wufei, he could not see them as equals in any way. And he did not dare even think of them as friends for fear of where that would lead.

Returning home had been a practice in silence. Une had accepted his resignation (effective immediately - what else could she do?) and Duo was not talking to him again. The braided woman had gone about making dinner that evening, shoving macaroni and cheese in front of them all and then leaving without touching her dinner. Her music was still loud despite the lateness of the hour. And here, there was no Hee-chan to calm her.

The page was beginning to look blurry so Wufei pushed it from himself and dropped his head into his crossed arms, quietly praying for some balance in this. Finding none in prayers, he stood, gathering his katanas and moving silently down the hall and to the living room, always silent - would this be his life? This silence would govern his actions?

The katanas, he kneels on the carpeted floor carefully unwrapping them and letting his mind roam over another side to an enemy he hadn't known to exist. That Treize could love. That Treize could put aside the war for the favor of stolen moments of tenderness. It made him wonder how different the two men were. That Treize had loved this Wufei was undeniable. Yet the thought pushed him to go back over his own memories, his own Treize, the one of his living, his past. Had there been silences there as well? Places where he had not gone yet the doors might have been there had he only been of the right persuasion?

In other words, was his Trieze, his enemy, also the same man capable of love and wishing to love the Dragon who had destroyed him? Was that… he realized with shock, the reason why Treize had lost that last battle? The battle that he should never have lost? Wufei had always thought it was due to Treize not wanting to be there for the destruction of his attempt at an empire. But maybe it had been something greater than that?

Strange, to find himself thinking that the love of a man for him, something he would not have desired nor did he desire still, would have been greater than simple honor.

With a calm in his spirit, Wufei pushed the katanas before him, further from his knees so that he might bow to them, to the man who had held them, to the memory of a man who might have caused much grief but was capable, Wufei could recognize finally, of great emotion and love as well as pride.

He did not do his katana ritual that night. Rather, he remained, prostate before a ghost and, he felt, learned a great deal about what he might have come to know had he simply stopped his own pride and grown to humble himself before a man far greater than he appeared on the outside.

And in doing so, Wufei wept the tears that the proper Wufei of this world, had promised the general in his journals.

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((_Oh it is good to be back! School is out and I'm my own person again! Yay! My pardons for the stilted feelof this chapter. I'm having a bit more difficulty with this story line than the other, because things took a far more direct approach to Wufei's position in this side as opposed to the other side. Hoping to keep things light hearted for the most part though. I have the next chapter done and will post that as well, two chapter increments! Yay!_

_**S.Maldiva**: Thank you! Even with little to say, it's good that you're enjoying it! _

_**C**: Oh wow… and you got all of that from this little fic? Thank you so much for your comments! Yes, I think it's interesting how much of an impact the past has on them all, yet hopefully they keep something of the same personality, merely shifted a degree to the left or right. Eep! It's just for fun, so I can't be too anal about it. Yet it would be fun to really get deep into it one day. _

_**Tsuchi**: Hee hee! Everyone is coming back into this! I'm so glad you're enjoying it! And yes… I wasn't sure how to make that obvious.. it's hard to put in, grah! There's so much overlap and italics alone don't quite cut it… but then again… I'll maybe go over it again some day and figure out what I could do to make it more easily understood._

_And thank you to all you who are hanging in there with me and still reading! You folks are amazing._))


	10. Scoperta dell'oceano perfetto

**Chapter 10: Scoperta dell'oceano perfetto**

* * *

(ch rewritten)

:male:

Camping. What a strange way to bond with one's roommates. Wufei watched the smoke from the dying fire lift into the early morning sunshine. Breakfast done (a breakfast he'd not made) and sitting on a log that Heero had placed on the ground for him, with a cup of coffee that Duo had drawn for him out of a percolator coffee pot, he should have felt at ease. If it just weren't for the state of confusion and discomfort from what had happened over the last two days, he'd be having a wonderful time.

They'd come to the top of the cliff that first evening. When he'd finally managed to join the other two, they were already repartitioning out his pack. He'd sputtered, complained, even threatened in his best mock-Heero manner, but nothing had stopped his two friends from lightening his own pack and making their own heavier. No matter what he said, Heero or Duo would merely smile, pat his shoulder or touch his arm or tousle his hair and say "You know the deal, Wufei" or "Chang" or "Wufei-bear."

He didn't know the deal. The confusing turn of events didn't help his feeling of unease. When they'd packed their gear down the ridge for another five miles before they'd stopped just as the sun was setting against the eastern range and hadn't allowed him to set up camp or start a fire or make the dinner. Always it was the touch on the arm, the half hug, the smile, the words.

Hell, he wouldn't have minded the words much, or the smiles. But the touching was driving him insane. For two days, he'd been in constant contact with one or both of them. Once, he'd merely sat down on the side of a stream during a quick break. And apparently because he didn't have anything better to do, Duo had come behind him, fitted arms around him and watched the water tumble by. Wufei put an end to that quickly enough, it didn't do to want something so badly and have it… so close. Or later that same evening, when they'd made camp and Duo was making dinner, Heero had taken Wufei's leg and drawn it over his own knee, rubbing Wufei's arch, sending his tense body into shivers.

The touching thing was part of the deal too, apparently. And he, poor dumb guy that he was, had to act like this was all normal. He had to keep his mouth shut, to pull away like he didn't give a damn, and had to mostly try to act stoic. Maybe he'd been succeeding. He was scared to death of being found out, that one of them would hug him too tightly and he'd sag into their embrace, or someone would trace his leg and he'd show signs of finding it something other than disgusting. The fear made his face pinched and pale, his body ready to bolt at any move on their part that was even slightly friendly, and yet that too seemed to be accepted by the other two, as if this were normal. So maybe…maybe abject terror was almost the same thing as stoicism?

A crunch of boots on the ground behind him gave him a warning before Heero rounded his sitting place with a canvas bag full of water. The blue eyed pilot poured it over the campfire, using the toe of his shoe to stir the ashes then poured the remaining water for good measure. Wufei let himself gaze over his friend, this new Heero, as he stood, shaking out the canvas bag.

Heero's form hadn't changed. He was still fluid in motion and statuesque when he stilled, a counterpoint between water and stone. It was an enigma when Heero had been aloof. Now it was a mystery with lines that tantalized, clues as to what was going on under the unbroken surface Wufei was familiar and yet unfamiliar with. That was, if the two Heeros were any much the same? Wufei wasn't sure how this alternate reality thing worked.

Wufei smiled slightly, ignored for the moment, he could take note of the slim, tense, balanced form of the other ex-pilot. Heero had filled out since their teens, his shoulders far more broad, his hair grown out some, so that while it remained mussed, it didn't stick up so much, but hung, heavy and thick around his scalp, down to his collar. And here, where they'd not had a shower for days, it had clumped in a way that shone and moved, but wouldn't go over well at the office. The look suited this more gentle, alive Heero.

"Wuffers with a smile," the soft voice in his ear made his body shiver. Gods, but he wanted to lean back into that voice so badly! Wufei closed his eyes as Duo's breath touched his cheek. "What could possibly be amusing our dear Chang-alang?"

"Chang-alang?" Wufei chuckled, for the moment forgetting in the quiet of the morning and the fact that he couldn't see Duo, nor Heero now that his eyes were closed, that his personal space wasn't quite… invaded.

"I think it fits," Duo's laugh was on the other side of his shoulder and he thought he could hear the slight shifting of rock as Duo moved his weight to his other foot. "Let me in on the joke, Wuffers?"

"Heero," Wufei sighed and his smile returned.

"Hmmm?"

"He looks like a mountain man. And it suits him." Wufei always talked to Duo. She'd have laughed and wrapped her arms around him, made it a joke between the two of them. He missed her… missed… "Duo?"

"Yes?" a whisper. So intimate. Like it was with her, only this intimacy carried a different weight and taste in its touch.

"I…" Wufei breathed and then blinked when the sun came out from behind one of the sparse clouds and hit his face, reminding him to open his eyes. There, before him, Heero stood, watching Wufei, hand on his hip, the bag dangling from his fingers and dribbling water down his jeans, making a dark line in amongst the dirt from camping.

And in those brilliant blue eyes, was something that seemed more like a question, or an answer, as if it was finding something beautiful to gaze at. For a moment, Wufei's breath caught. Heero… looking at him like that?

A chuckle behind him and he turned, finding Duo's face close to his. At the same time that his pulse leapt upon finding the object of his affection so close, his heart also did a nose dive off of the nearest pine tree and smashed upon the rocky ground.

No. No it wasn't him Heero looked at with that painfully sweet gaze. It was Duo. And Wufei, caught in the crossfire of their gazes, like a child with runny nose pressed to glass, watched the food being laid out on a table he would never be asked to attend.

"I.. have to go.." Wufei stood, knocking Duo backwards on his hind end with an audible 'oof!' Wufei ran his hand through his loose hair, it had come out of a tie and neither of the other young men had helped him to find his packet of bands. "I mean… I… "

Duo laughed. "You don't have to make a public announcement every time you have to use the bushes, Wuffers.. go ahead."

Wufei turned and all but ran for the woods.

:-:-:

Sometime later, Wufei had picked up a small stick during their wanderings down the ridge. He'd cut two notches in it, then cut in a third even though the third day was not yet half gone, because he wanted to imagine that it was over. That it was beyond this point. Only two more days, well, two and a half. They'd have a full day home without anything to do but laze. He ran his fingers over the notches as he walked, keeping his eyes on the white flesh of the tree showing through the rough grey bark.

He felt like he stood on the brink of something new, astounding, a discovery that he wasn't sure would be of any help to him, but might relieve some pressure he felt under. So he went over it all in his head as he walked. Duo and Heero. They were definitely in love. They'd been together, how long? The diary hadn't really said. But if it was anything like his world, Duo would have told Heero about two years before this. So two years at least. Not too long, yet not too new either. Duo had told him that he loved him. And Heero knew.

Knowing Duo, as he'd known _her_, he would have wanted to say it just to have it said. For the Duos, either sex, the concept of secrets between friends could be almost painful. So just to be able to say it was going to be a relief to the braided pilot.

But Wufei had always assumed that if Heero chose to love someone like he did Duo, that Yuy would have felt jealous of any attempts to infiltrate his relationship. Heero had too few of them, making each relationship precious. If so, then why wasn't Wufei presenting a danger? Was Heero that confident of his hold upon Duo? Or Duo's hold upon him, perhaps. An unbreakable bond held the two of them together. Wufei would have to be blind to not see it.

"Chang!" as if to break his thoughts to pieces, Heero's voice cut through the quiet.

"Yeah?" he asked, pushing the stick into his pocket and looking up, readjusting himself some onto his path.

"Would you like to go by way of the river?"

Wufei's brow crinkled. He looked around. They were on top of a ridge. They had been ridge walking for two and a half days now. There was no river anywhere near. "Sure." Was that what the other Wufei would have said? He hated this. It would be so much easier if somehow he knew what was going on even half of the time.

"Hn," Heero grunted in the affirmative and the dark haired man turned and followed where a golden brown braid rounded a bend. Wufei stopped to watch Heero disappear as well and then remained where he was, listening to the silence.

The world was silence. He smiled.

_"WELL?"_

_He blinked in amazement, staring at where a pinkish bubble just popped out in front of his nose. Suddenly something resembling a rather ticked off piece of cotton candy was floating in front of his nose._

_He shrugged, having gathered his composure. "Well what?"_

_Under his shoe soles, the earth heaved and he was forced to move his foot as a grungy bear like figure with crumpled wings (was it his imagination or did they look worse than last time?) clambered out of the dirt in the center of the path, stood pudgily on the edge of the grass and brushed his nose with a dusty paw before it sneezed and looked up at the man. "Well, what about how things are going? Seems to me that if you're going to be putting our jobs on the line, you'd best be doing it with better intention."_

_"Better intention?" Wufei gaped._

_"Oh you dear," the cotton candy fluff ball flitted down to the bear and hugged him tightly. Somehow, she came away without a single speck of dust upon her person. "Don't you think he's doing his best? But my goodness, you are turning scared. What is wrong? You seem to be running from them rather than toward them, sweetie," she blinked up at him and he felt nauseous._

_"Look," Wufei grimaced. "I don't expect either of us are making a very good job of this. Think you might consider swapping us back?"_

_"Back?" the cotton candy fairy thing screeched. "Back?" Then she suddenly decided this wasn't too serious and began to laugh. "Oh isn't that sweet? I think he's worried about the other one of him. Well, not that the other one is doing altogether so well, but we're making progress, don't you think?"_

_"Progress toward losing our jobs forever," the bear grumbled and then shook a paw at Wufei so that small puffs of dirt flew off at each shake. "Now listen you. Start putting some effort into this. They're going to start sending an inquiry into this mess in a short while. And you've got to show at least some improvement in your status."_

_This time the cotton candy girl didn't disagree. Instead she nodded. "Yes… a kiss or two? Do you think you might do that? Oh it would be so romantic! I think that would be nice."_

_"Kiss? Duo?" Wufei stared at them both in terror._

_"Of course, sweetie. I think a kiss would be more than adequate." She nodded and smiled._

_He shook his head. "I'm sorry.. I… I just think that this might be a big mistake."_

_"No no no," she beamed at him and patted his shoulder, then gently on his cheek. "No, you silly lover boy. You'll see. I think if you just.. you know, make a move or two."_

_"But.. Heero?" he asked in a strangled voice. _

"But Heero what?" An amused tone asked, and a hand remained on his cheek.

Wufei opened his eyes, not having realized that they were closed. There, over him, Duo was staring at him with an amused amethyst gaze. "Heero what?" Wufei heard himself parrot stupidly.

"That's what I was asking you, buddy." Duo leaned back and Wufei realized that he was laying on the ground, staring at the sky with Duo crouched beside him and Heero on the other side, the latter with a look of concern on his face. "You okay? Don't know how long we were gone before we figured you weren't with us anymore."

Wufei sighed. "I'm sorry…"

"No, that's okay, bud. Maybe a nap was a good idea. This is a vacation after all," Duo chuckled.

Nap. Was that it? Wufei sat up slowly and found to his consternation that two pairs of hands went to his shoulders. Fear flooding him, he shrugged their combined touch off. "I.. I'm okay," he quickly assured them and found himself feeling both relieved and keenly disappointed that they didn't find anything amiss in his shrinking from them.

It was going to be a long road home.


End file.
